Consolation Prize
by dizzynetbookgirl
Summary: In the aftermath of the disaster, Rose learns that she's carrying Jack's child. She makes the difficult choice to seek help from Cal, and the two of them strike up a deadlock agreement that soon evolves into something more complex and confusing than either had anticipated. Cal/Rose. /UNDER CONSTRUCTION./
1. Chapter One

Anybody who received duplicate annoying alerts from me – sorry! I got the formatting/re-posting stuff screwed up and out of order, because I'm a dumbshit.

**A/N:**

Couple of things:

-This story is Cal-centric even though I don't portray him as the good guy (or the villain, for that matter) and yes I do ship Rose and Cal as a warning to anyone who's reading this for the first time. There won't be any Runaway-Rose-escapes-to-Calvert or anything like that in here. I really just write what I want to read, or at least I try to.

-Also, this is a pretty old fic that I'm currently being experimental with (!). A cohesive version of the original can be found on Anne's Story Page.

-Disclaimer: No CW infringement. Most of the newspaper headlines in this chapter are from the archive section of the New York Times website.

* * *

**Chapter One**

["All The News That's Fit To Be Print."]

_The New York Times._ New York, Tuesday, April 16, 1912—Twenty-Four Pages

_TITANIC SINKS FOUR HOURS AFTER HITTING ICEBERG; 866 RESCUED BY CARPATHIA, PROBABLY 1250 PERISH; ISMAY SAFE, MRS. ASTOR MAYBE, NOTED NAMES MISSING_

x

MINIA IS DUE TO-MORROW.; Bringing to Halifax Last of the Bodies Recovered from the Titanic.

HALIFAX, N.S., May 4

x

_COLD KILLED MANY OF TITANIC VICTIMS; Of Seventeen Picked Up by the Minia Only One Was Drowned_.

HALIFAX, N.S., May 6. - Scores of persons were alive and floating about the ocean for hours after the Titanic sank according to the ship's physician on board the steamer Minia, which arrived to-day. Of seventeen bodies recovered only one of the victims met death by drowning, all others having perished from exposure.

x

_THE TITANIC'S CONDITION.; Senator Smith Seeks Information from Financial Bureau_.

WASHINGTON, May 8. - The Senate Committee investigating the Titanic disaster purposes to learn something about certain reports concerning the condition of the ship on the day she sank.

x

_WHITE STAR PAYS IN FULL.; Settles for Maximum the First Claim from Titanic Disaster_.

x

_IN STEEL AND IRON.; Great Activity and Preparations for Business at Pittsburgh_.

PITTSBURGH, June 22.

x

_TITANIC FINDINGS TO ABSOLVE ISMAY.; But Excessive Speed Is Likely to be Declared the Cause of Disaster_.

LONDON, Jun 29. - The Titanic inquiry is approaching a close, and the findings of the court, it is expected, will be rendered some time next week.

xXx

* * *

_JUNE 1912_

_New York City_

Credibility was a problem.

"You know how to sew, girl?"

Rose clenched her hands behind her back, with the classified ads rolled up in them like a baseball bat. She always tried to keep her hands hidden. They were still lily-pale and petal-soft, marks of the devil; they gave her away. "A—a little," she said, leaning forward into the doorstep, as if that would stop this woman from slamming the door in her face.

The woman's arms were crossed. She was strong-looking and heavy, not the product of fine breeding stock. Middle-class. "Have you ever darned a sock in your life?" she demanded.

"Well—no. But—"

"What do you know about garden-tending? Can you cook? Clean?"

"I'm willing to learn," said Rose, trying as hard as she could to show with eye contact what she couldn't have said out loud. She realized that her feet were primly together (force of habit, _damn it all_) and quickly stepped them apart, more abrupt and less discreet in motion than she'd intended. Yes, credibility was a real problem.

The woman's face didn't soften with its thick features twisted in skepticism, and her arms didn't uncross. Her narrowed eyes were humorless, flitting up and down Rose's personage—her _semblance_—in a single disinterested half-glance that most likely revealed to her everything Rose had made an effort to cover up. "I have more important things to worry about than a little rich girl with too much time on her hands and nothing to do."

Rose opened her mouth to speak.

The door slammed in her face.

All she saw was her reflection glaring back at her in the glass pane of the door. It was like staring into a funhouse mirror. _Little rich girl_, really? In her old dress with its trailing torn hem, her nose sunburned, her hair in tangles like Medusa?

xXx

_experienced nanny wanted_

_seeking full-time housekeeper with references_

_maids with previous manor experience encouraged to apply_

_textile factory needs skilled workers_

Sometimes Rose fell asleep on a park bench with the morning's stolen newspaper rolled up in her hand which by the end of the day was only good for swatting at mosquitoes. Sometimes she lay awake in the painful hours of morning and recited conversations to herself, mouthing the words over and over, remembering every facial expression and vocal intonation until she could close her eyes and relive those moments with perfect clarity.

_You jump, I jump—remember?_

And sometimes—not as often, but sometimes—she tried to peel open her eyes and pay attention to what was going on around her. But she wasn't much good at it.

She didn't have the instincts for hunting. She was just too slow, too static, not quick and clever Jack-be-nimble like she should have been. Her deficiencies were probably going be the death of her, soon. Sooner.

The rain woke her.

It sliced down through the morning mist, warm, aggressive rain that couldn't cool the city. She curled on her usual bench beneath the wool coat, and she felt damp and sweaty and sick, like she did most mornings. Swallowing nausea, she flipped back a corner of the coat so that she could watch businessmen scattering like marbles over the sidewalks and streets as they dropped their newspapers and ducked for cover.

She swooped in and salvaged one of them.

Returning to her bench, she tossed back her mass of heavy wet hair and tried to pull apart pieces of soaked newspaper. The wanted ads. The classifieds.

_experience required_

The wet page tore off in her hand.

Wanting to scream, Rose jerked back her arm and threw the torn newspaper pulp as hard as she could at the sidewalk. Headlines peered up at her like taunting, curious eyes.

_HARLAND & WOLFF REJECTS CLAIM THAT BRITTLE STEEL MAY BE AT FAULT IN DISASTER SHIPWRECK_.

xXx

It had been _weeks_. Five, six, seven, eight—was she even counting?

All the shelters were overcrowded and filthy. She could have slipped into one unnoticed—at least, she liked to believe that she could have—but she felt like she was suffocating. _I can do this, my fire is still burning at least a little bit_ she kept telling herself at the black of twilight when she hurried to bathe herself in the fountains of Central Park. She spent a lot of time _hurrying_, these days, because she was always so afraid that someone was going to catch her. She didn't know how to play this foreign game of hunter/gatherer. She was a minnow in a pool of sharks, tiny and dangerously unaware.

There was no point searching for pity in the faceless sidewalk strangers of New York City.

_Little rich girl_.

Was that what all of them saw as she darted past, eyes down, quick and shaky and nervous for reasons she never could entirely pinpoint?

xXx

It had been weeks, and she was starting to fancy herself selfish.

It would have been so _easy_ to go home, so _easy_ to splutter lies and excuses and loathsome apologies. But the way people would look at her… everything she knew they were going to think and say when they thought she was out of earshot… she wasn't sure she could take it. She didn't want it, she didn't want to do things anymore that she didn't want to do. She wanted to think only about herself. And, at the primal level, she saw that, _in_ herself, and she didn't like it. Didn't respect it.

Jack Dawson had died for her, not with her. He had sacrificed his life for hers, so that she would live, so that she would be _alive_.

The bitterest, most sickening thought kept flickering on and off in her mind—

—_Cal_—

—and she tried never to linger on that idea, oh God did she hate thinking about it, but every time she tried to shove it out of her mind it would force its way back, wretched but still so ridiculous and brutal and _real_.

This was a paradox of Epicurean proportions.

_Can the hand that feeds be indivisible from the hand that kills?_

xXx

No.

She stood in line at the shelter, waiting her turn as volunteers handed out sacks of bread and apples. She ignored the scuffle of people around her. She had gotten very good at tuning out the world, at hearing silence where there was none.

Back in the park, she did her laundry—which meant dipping the odd pieces of clothing she'd collected into the pond and spreading them out in the grass to dry. The afternoon was overcast and cool for early summer. The rain had stopped hours ago.

I could go home, she thought, flinging herself down in the grass among the fabric.

I could give up, lie down and die.

Was it really so black and white? Maybe she was wrong—maybe her suspicions were off.

But did she want to be wrong?

She opened her eyes, stared up into the white-gray sky, and put her hand into the dangerous pocket of Cal's coat, a place she had willed herself to forget about. Her fingers brushed cool metal, and she just stared into the endless sky and couldn't move or breathe or see at all.

_I'm trying, Jack_. _I don't want to let go_. _I'm trying not to let go_.

xXx

She was _insane_.

How could she think of it? Where were her dreams that had seemed so lucid while she was asleep? Her dreams of roller coasters in Santa Monica that would make her want to die for the fragility of tomorrow, spitting and horseback-riding on the beach, too drunk on cheap beer to see straight, and the world so beautiful and dizzy and bright…

But this wasn't about her anymore, and her dreams of gallivanting had begun to slip tragically away.

She wandered down the sidewalk in the early morning light tapping a walking stick along the ground, alert despite her queasiness. She stopped ten feet from the post office door. Just stopped, and stared, and beheld this place of unwanted possibilities.

Through the glass she watched a short little man in a mail hat unlocking the door from inside. He seemed to notice her staring at him and squinted, keys in hand.

The post office disappeared, spinning and bleeding away like paint running off a canvas until it was something one-dimensional and formless.

_Nightmare_.

Disoriented and flustered, Rose spun around and took several long, unsteady strides in the opposite direction, not even sure what she was doing. Was she running away? Did she feel like a thief or a voyeur or a traitor, or a coward?

She didn't even know.

All she knew was that she had made a promise, and that maybe—_maybe_—

Her long strides shortened, and halted. And slowly, she turned back around. The overcast sky beat down against the post office and the short postman, who stood angled now in the open door.

"Well there, miss?" he said, waiting.

Maybe this was selfishness, in its own desperate way.

Rose closed the distance between herself and the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Two**

xXx**  
**

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

xXx

Cal tossed back another shot of brandy and slammed the empty glass onto his desk, laughing to himself as the room spun around him. He stared at the telegram in front of him but couldn't focus his eyes well enough to read. It made no difference. He had already read it too many times.

She was alive. She was, as she had put it… _in a tight spot_.

Cal laughed again, louder. Of course. _Of course_. The little slut had tried to make herself disappear, hadn't been able to—did she honestly think she would get anywhere, a child with no money and no connections in the big city?—and now. _Now _she was probably half dead in the streets, and _now _she was crying for help.

His anger subsided as he gulped down another shot. No. This was too much. He had _tried _to move on, _tried _to accept the loss, _tried _to wash his hands of her, and now.

Damn her.

But God, she was alive.

Rose.

_Rose_.

Bile rose in his throat as he crumpled the telegram in one hand.

_I would like a chance to explain myself but I've almost run out of resources and I'm in a tight spot. I await your response. Rose. _

xXx

He had to see her.

He desperately wanted to touch her, to hear her speak, to smash her pretty face with his fist—

_You unimaginable bastard_.

xXx

He sent no word return, only money. Enough for a train ticket to Pittsburgh. She would know what to do with it.

If she had never responded it wouldn't have phased him. Until he saw her with his own eyes, she was still dead and that telegram a joke. He almost preferred to imagine it that way.

But she sent one more message, letting him know that she would be there the following Thursday unless he wrote back and told her not to come.

He didn't reply.

The train from New York City was scheduled to arrive Thursday evening at eight. Cal stood on the platform and watched it pull in. Orange-gold light from the setting sun bounced off its windows.

He scarcely recognized her when she stepped off.

Her hair was stringy, her dress stained and torn. She was thinner and grayer. Still Rose, but at the same time someone else altogether—someone without any of the fire or vitality that had once made her both addictive and insufferable.

She glanced across the platform. Her eyes fell on him.

She raised one hand in greeting.

Cal felt slightly ill as she crossed over to him. His heart began to race.

For a moment she terrified him.

That moment was quickly swallowed up by the bitterness and frustration he had come to feel when he thought of her.

"What in God's name is wrong with you?" he growled before he could think better of making a scene in public. "Do you have any idea what you've done to your mother? What you've done to me? We thought you were dead_—_"

She stared at him with a horrible vacancy in her eyes. Sunlight caught in her hair, touched her ashen face, breathed temporary life into the empty shell of her body.

"Rose—" he said, his voice faltering.

Still she just stared.

Cal cleared his throat. "Well," he said, "come along then."

Across from him in the car Rose gazed out the window, clutching her filthy, ragged satchel to her chest.

Neither of them spoke.

Cal retreated to his study when they arrived home after entrusting Rose to one of the maids. Get her cleaned up, he said.

Rose didn't protest.

Cal collapsed at his desk and reached for the brandy bottle.

xXx

"Your mother has been inconsolable."

Something like hate flickered over Rose's face. "Have you told her?"

"That you're alive? No," said Cal. "I wanted to see you first myself."

She looked better. A little better, at least. She had bathed, changed her dress—a maid's dress, probably all that was on hand—but it was clean.

A pale shadow of her former radiance, of course.

But an improvement.

She looked down at the cup of tea in her lap.

She seemed to want to look anywhere but directly at him.

"I don't profess to understand any of your actions or your choices," Cal went on. "But if you wanted to play dead, then why—"

"I'm pregnant."

So she had given herself to Dawson, actually _allowed him to_—

—Of course.

In Cal's mind, the pieces of the puzzle began falling into place even before she spoke again. Now he understood. Now he knew why she had contacted him.

"I need your help."

Cal flashed her a patronizing smile. "That much is obvious," he said humorlessly.

She raised her eyes. "Is that all you have to say to me?" she asked.

He wanted to smack her.

"I'm not going to do this with you, Rose," he bit out. "You're requesting my help and you had damn well better be grateful because any other man in his right mind would have left you to die in the streets, you little slut."

"How _dare_ you—"

"How dare I what? How dare I demand respect from the person who comes to me for charity?"

"I don't want charity," Rose replied, some of the anger fading from her voice. She stared at the tumbler in Cal's hand rather than at Cal himself. "I want to make a proposition."

"What?"

She took a deep breath. "You help me and I'll help you in return."

The corner of Cal's mouth flickered upward. "Your… help… was never what I was after," he said. "You have tactically very little to offer me."

"Well, I'm willing to—to give you what you wanted before."

What did she mean by that? Sex?

"I'll marry you so that you can inherit your company," she said, "if you'll allow me to raise my child in a safe, stable environment."

"Oh. I see. You found the gutters unsuitable for childrearing."

"Please don't," she said.

She was looking at him, finally. Unblinking.

Cal took a drink. "The thing about that," he said, "is that Hockley Steel will be signed to my name one of two ways. Marriage is the quickest answer, but once Nathan is dead it will fall automatically into my possession. He's years past his prime… I have half a mind to help him along and skip marrying altogether. It would certainly be easier."

"You disgust me, Cal," Rose whispered. "You are pathetic."

—_unimaginable bastard—_

"You can be sure that you were a last resort. I telegrammed you out of desperation." Her knuckles were white, gripping her teacup. "I had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. I couldn't find work. There was some money in your coat pocket but not enough to make a difference. And when I realized that I was going to have a baby I knew I had to do _something_—I couldn't just—keep wandering—"

Her voice cracked.

"I accept your proposition," he heard himself saying.

This wasn't what he wanted.

This wasn't _ever _what he had wanted.


	3. Chapter 3

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Three**

xXx**  
**

They were shocked.

Everyone said you had died, they declared.

And why on earth did you not come back right away? And where have you been since? And what could you _possibly_ have been doing with yourself all this time?...

She vomited up answers.

Shock.

Illness.

Exhaustion.

"I was disoriented," she told them blankly.

She made up a story about a kind old woman who ran a shelter and had taken pity on her, given her a place to stay while she recovered and came to terms with what had happened.

Her mother welcomed her home with stoic relief. She refused to acknowledge all the time that had passed and wouldn't speak a word about what had happened.

Rose knew that as far as her mother was concerned, nothing _had_ happened. And now that everyone and everything was back in place, life would continue as it was always meant to.

xXx

It was easy to avoid Cal in the Hockley mansion, particularly since he was often gone during the day, but servants were everywhere, asking her if she needed anything, asking if she felt alright, staring at her as though she were something strange and foreign.

All Rose wanted was a spot where she could go to be alone.

She was given a room on the third floor.

"I ought to see a doctor…" she told Cal.

He refused to call one before they had been married.

Taking responsibility for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was something he outright would not do, even if the doctor was the only one to know.

So she slipped off one afternoon and called on the doctor herself, while Cal was out.

She was going to be autonomous now whether Cal liked it or not. They may have made an agreement, but he didn't own her, not then, not now.

Never would he own her.

xXx

Wedding plans were rushed. They would be married the first of July. Rose's condition left them very little time for preparation because Cal was obsessed with timing things out.

When she gave birth in January they would claim prematurity.

The inner circle would believe that.

And anyone who didn't would pretend to.

xXx

Rose liked to sneak out after midnight and wander over the acreage beneath the stars. The clean warm night air filled her lungs almost to bursting as she breathed it in.

It reminded her of her time in New York. She was free from all expectation, even if it was only for an hour. She could breathe. For all anyone knew, she was in bed asleep.

Instead, just for now, she was a missing person.

The thought invigorated her.

Cal would hate it.

She smiled, but the spark of pleasure faded fast.

Cal had changed. He hardly seemed to care now what she did with her time. They dined together and he spoke to her when it was necessary and sometimes they crossed each other in the hallways and he would stalk past her without any acknowledgment and continue on his way. He was out most of the time, and when he came home he shut himself up in his study.

She sometimes heard him shouting at servants, angry over things that probably didn't necessitate anger, and she tried to be glad that he at least left her alone.

She felt like a ghost.

Which was probably how he saw her. His lost fiancée, risen from the dead.

She'd been on her own for weeks in New York with no one to talk to. Certainly no one to draw affection from. And the type of attention she had received from Cal during their previous engagement had always been unwanted.

Would it be better if he were trying to pick up where they had left off?

No.

What a painfully stupid thought.

She would get the affection she needed from Jack's child. In the meantime she would endure.

"Have a nice stroll?" said a voice as Rose slipped in through the back kitchen door.

"Cal." She started. He stood in the darkened doorway, a drink in one hand. "You startled me."

He smirked at her and took a drink.

"Well," she said, moving to the door, "I was just on my way to bed."

"Just like you were five hours ago when you ran off from the dinner table with a headache?"

He grabbed her by the arm, stopping her. She looked up into his face. His eyes were a little unfocused, a little red.

"Are you drunk, Cal?"

"Whatever gave you the idea that it was your place to question me?"

"I'd like to go to bed." She tried to free her arm from his grip, but he held on.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Rose?" he asked, leaning closer. "Wouldn't _Jack_ be thrilled if he could see how you've ended up? Didn't he try to liberate you from all this, sweetpea? How ironic that he's the reason you were forced to return and enslave yourself again."

Rose tried to swallow the sob rising in her throat, tried to bury the hatred and revulsion she felt toward Cal. "Let go of me," she said, finally tearing herself from his grip.

She took a few steps toward the staircase.

"Stop wandering around my property at night," Cal called after her. "For once in your life just be where you're supposed to be."

You can't control me, Cal. You don't own me, Cal.

She closed her eyes and saw water rushing up toward her, could almost feel the aching sting of the ocean.

She saw Jack's frozen, bluish face as it disappeared beneath the surface.

Cal's voice echoed in her mind.

_Where are you going? To him? To be a whore to a gutter rat?_

xXx

She couldn't sleep.

She put on her dressing gown and crept along the dark, silent hallway. She planned to go to the kitchen, to make herself a cup of hot tea. It would soothe her.

Turning a corner, she saw the door of Cal's study was open a crack. Dim yellow lamplight spilled into the hallway.

She drew closer and peered inside.

He was at his desk, rubbing his temple as though he had a splitting headache. His half empty tumbler had been knocked on its side. A ribbon of golden liquor gleamed over the desktop, trickled off the edge onto the hardwood floor.

Cal leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.

Was he _crying_?

No.

He didn't move.

The scene was like a painting, all dimness and soft yellow light to hide, or maybe offset, a darker undertone of despair.

Rose wasn't sure how long she stood at the door watching.

Perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten, perhaps twenty.

When she finally turned away she retreated not to the kitchen but back to her bedroom, tiptoeing so the floorboards wouldn't creak under her weight.

She wished she hadn't seen Cal in his study.

She tried frantically to wipe the image from her memory. Couldn't.

Cal wasn't supposed to look like that.


	4. Chapter 4

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Four**

xXx

The groundskeeper found her, at dawn, unconscious, in her nightgown at the edge of the pond.

"I fell and hit my head on a rock," she told Cal defiantly.

It was an obvious lie.

"I told you not to go wandering at night."

"I have free will. You aren't my master."

Was she so _stupid _that she didn't understand? Did she honestly think it was a good idea to go adventuring around, over a property full of hills and trenches and ponds, _in_ the dark, _while_ she was in delicate condition?

She thought he was trying to control her. She thought she was asserting her independence.

She was an idiot.

xXx

He heard her sobbing in the hallway.

She obviously had no idea that he could hear her through the thin walls. Or maybe she thought he wasn't in his study. But he was _always_ in his study at night, and he missed very little.

"Oh my! What's wrong, miss?"

One of the young maids—Cal thought her name was Anna, Amelia, something like that although he had never paid her much attention. But he knew her voice.

"I just—I'm so—oh I just can't _take _it anymore," Rose sobbed. "I feel like… like I'm sealed in a glass case. Nothing… seems real anymore…"

The maid hushed her. "It's alright, miss… you can talk to me if you'd like…"

Rose sniffled.

Silence.

"I want to die," she choked out at last.

That was what it sounded like, anyway, although Cal couldn't quite hear her whisper.

"Oh, come now! Surely you don't mean that."

"But there's _nothing_ for me. No end to this. I'm going to spend the rest of my life trapped in this house being pushed around and ignored by Cal. He doesn't care about me. My mother doesn't care about me. I have no one to—I need—"

"Shh. It's alright."

"I could deal with it if I'd never known anything else. But I've had a taste of something different and it was—it was torn away from me as soon I thought I was safe—"

"What do you mean?"

Pause.

"I don't know," she murmured at last. "I don't know. But for a moment I felt… I felt _alive. _And now… I don't… I just feel h-hollow…"

Cal leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall. She was so stupid, trying to be poetic about her feelings, trying to elicit sympathy—

"What are you talking about, miss? Is this about the ship? I know I can't begin to understand how traumatic it must have been for you, but—"

"I don't want to talk about that," Rose snapped, her voice suddenly sharp.

"I apologize for prying," said the maid. "I only wanted to help."

"It's all Cal's fault."

"What is… Mr. Hockley's fault?"

"Everything," said Rose. "He destroyed my only chance at happiness. He's tried to crush my spirit. He doesn't even realize that I'm human."

"Perhaps you should talk to him."

"He wouldn't understand. He's never understood the first thing about me. I don't think he hears any meaning in a word I say… I'm sure when I speak it's nothing but white noise to him."

"I'm so sorry, miss. I wish there was something I could do to help."

Rose never responded.

xXx

Cal left early the next morning on a week-long business trip to Baltimore. Just before he went to catch the train, he told his valet to find the linen maid.

"Who?"

"Don't know her name. She's about twenty. Blond hair. I want a word with her in my study."

She arrived several minutes later. "I was told you wanted to speak with me, sir?" she asked, her eyes flickering nervously around the room.

"Shut the door."

She did.

"I overheard you in the hallway last night speaking with my fiancée."

Color drained from the girl's face. "Yes, sir," she said softly.

"I would thank you to stay out of personal matters that concern only Rose and myself."

"Yes sir."

"You are dismissed."

"Yes, sir."

She turned to leave.

"I'll allow you the week to make accommodations elsewhere."

She froze. "Sir—"

He smiled. "Yes?"

They stared at each other for a moment.

"Nothing," she said at last, her voice trembling. "Thank you, sir."

She pulled the door shut behind her on her way out.

xXx

When he returned home at the end of the week, all traces of the maid were gone. Another girl had been hired as her replacement.

Rose cornered him in the sitting room.

"You dismissed her," she said, her eyes flashing.

"What now?" Cal said distractedly.

"The linen maid! She did nothing wrong!"

"I'll dismiss my employees whenever I want to and for whatever reason I deem appropriate."

Rose clenched her fists. "You dismissed her because she tried to comfort me when I was upset."

"This conversation is over, Rose."

Cal walked out of the room and into the hallway.

She trailed after him.

"No it isn't," she said loudly as she followed him up to the third floor where his study was. "What, did it make you uncomfortable that someone got a different perspective on you? One that wasn't all about how rich and handsome and charming and perfect you are? You couldn't stand to deal with anyone who might not think you're God—"

"Shut up, Rose."

"_I will not shut up!_"

Cal stopped in front of his study and turned to look at her. She glared at him. She was breathing hard.

And then, her expression softened. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. It seemed like she was making a deliberate attempt to calm herself.

"I was actually hoping," she said, "that we could talk."

"About?"

She bit her lip. "Well I… I don't think this is working. Any of it."

"I realize you would rather be dead than here with me and that you only came back because you needed financial support. Did you expect something different?"

He opened the study door and waited for her to go in ahead of him.

"I suppose you heard everything I told Annie that night in the hallway." She paused. "Did anything I said… make any sense to you, at all?"

Cal scoffed. "Of course. You're suicidal and you have no hope for the future."

"I'm not suicidal, Cal."

"No?" He raised his voice. "Then what the hell are you, Rose? You're like a ghost wandering down the hallways and disappearing into the night. Sometimes I still believe you're dead even when you're right in front of me."

"I'm not a ghost," she said softly. "I'm someone who needs something that no one here can give me."

"And what's that? You told me you needed money and protection and those are things I _can _and _will _give you."

"You don't understand me." Her eyes shone with sudden tears. "You _never _understood me."

"Perhaps not, but you never tried to help me understand."

"You wouldn't have cared to."

"That was your assumption."

She stared at her lap and smoothed wrinkles from her skirt.

"Your misery doesn't give me pleasure, regardless of whatever you might have told yourself," said Cal, feeling very awkward.

Still she was silent.

"Rose?"

She looked at him. The tears in her eyes threatened to spill. "Then why couldn't you just let me be happy?" she whispered. "Why couldn't you let me go?"

And then she was gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Five**

xXx

The wedding was a blur.

After it was over Rose would hardly be able to remember a single concrete detail about any of it. In her memory it was just a whirl of color. People. People congratulating her, people holding her hand, people embracing her, people talking to her about topics that were of no interest to her whatsoever. Dozens of them. Hundreds.

Whatever she said, she said automatically. She wasn't sure whether she had kept a fake smile plastered on her face or whether she had been subdued and let Cal conduct her.

She was, however, quite conscious of Cal, chatting mindlessly to everyone around him, flashing his pretentious million-dollar smile, pretending that this was an occasion to celebrate.

She knew it was a front. Cal understood just as well as she did that this was a marriage of convenience that would never bring either of them happiness.

Had Cal's public persona always been a front? Was it possible that he had ever been genuine, or had his real self faded to nothing after years spent learning to play the socialite?

She couldn't tell.

xXx

Hours after it was over, after everyone had gone home, Rose's mother hung back. She seemed hesitant to leave. As though she wanted to absorb as much of it as she could. As though she were afraid Rose might try to wrench herself free again.

"I'm very tired, Mother," Rose sighed, slumping against her chair.

"I've hardly had a chance to see you since… you returned. Sit up straight, Rose—"

"Perhaps it's time we all retired for the night," Cal said from the doorway.

He was looking at Ruth.

She left shortly after.

Rose went to her room to prepare for bed. The house felt chilly despite the summer heat.

She looked down at her empty bed and shivered.

This was nothing like any wedding night she had ever imagined.

Sleeping by herself, in her own room, her own bed, no one to kiss her, hold her, touch her, tell her how beautiful and precious she was—

Rose shut her eyes and a series of remembered images clicked off quickly and violently in her mind, blurring and overlapping each other so she could hardly make sense of them.

But she knew the water was rushing up toward her again.

Rushing up _fast_.

She didn't breathe.

"Rose?"

She opened her eyes. Inhaled. Her heart beat against her ribcage.

"Come in," she told Cal, her voice shaking.

He stepped in the room and shut the door behind him. "Everything alright?" he asked, raising an eyebrow when he saw the look on her face.

She took another deep breath. "I'm fine. Did you want something?"

"I was hoping we could talk for a moment. Unless you're tired."

Rose looked at him in surprise. He had never approached her like this; for as long as she'd known him it would always be "Rose, I have to talk to you" or "Rose, come here now".

"I'm not tired," she said.

Cal pulled a chair up to her bed. "I won't say much about tonight," he said. "But I'm afraid your performance fell flat."

"I wasn't putting on a performance."

"You should have been. I can't count the number of people who asked me about you—"

"Perhaps you can help me brush up on my acting skills then," Rose interrupted. "You pretend to be me and I'll pretend to be you, and I'll tell you how dear you are to me and then slap you for theatrical effect."

Cal started to shoot back at her, and then seemed to think better of it. He took a deep breath and exhaled. "I'm very much aware that you don't want to be here with me," he said. "But I do hope that we can perhaps… learn to cooperate."

What was he getting at? Some kind of sexual proposition?

"As I said before," he went on, "your misery doesn't give me pleasure."

She stared at him.

"I don't want to be your antagonist, Rose."

Rose couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Rose?"

She broke eye contact. They sat in silence.

For some reason her heart was racing.

Did she dare open up to him? Would he try to listen or just mock her and discount her feelings as frivolity?

"I'm lonely tonight," she said at last.

He didn't respond.

"I just can't help feeling that this was never what should have happened."

_Where are you going? To him?_

"I promised…"

Her voice cracked. Her eyes flickered shut for only a second—

"…promised Jack that I would… that I would fall in love someday and have babies and live a long, accomplished life…"

She saw Cal's jaw tighten.

"And I've broken that promise. I feel almost… as though I've betrayed him."

"You're such an idiot, Rose."

Rose's jaw dropped. "Pardon me?"

"You're oblivious to yourself. You think you can do whatever you want and then you play the victim when there are consequences. But this is all of your own volition—you chose to go off cavorting with Dawson, and you chose to seek out my help when you suddenly found it convenient. You are an ungrateful whore, darling."

"How _dare _you—"

He stood up. "And now you want to tell me all about how _lonely_ you are—"

"Don't!" Rose cried, shrinking back against the wall, afraid he was going to strike her.

"—and how you pray to the soul of a man who gave you nothing and almost led you to your death—"

"_I loved Jack!_" she screamed. Furious tears streaked down her face. "He saved me every moment I was with him. He taught me so much about myself… he showed me that I had hope and that I could take control of my life. How dare you claim that he never gave me anything. He gave more to me in two days than you ever could have in a lifetime!"

"There is _nothing_ I wouldn't have given you. You could have had _everything_. Goddamn it, Rose—I bought you everything you asked for, I gave you presents that cost a fortune, I took you on expensive vacations—I agreed to marry you even though I had nothing to gain from it because your name was ruined—"

Rose stared at him in shock. She had always been under the impression that the Dewitt Bukaters' impending destitution was something her mother had kept deliberately hidden from Cal so that by the time he learned the truth, they'd be married and it would be too late to back out.

"I didn't need money," she choked out, her throat dry. "I needed kindness… affection… excitement… understanding… none of which you ever offered me."

"I was never unkind to you."

"You _hit_ me, Cal! You _shot_ at me with a gun!"

A hint of a condescending smile flickered across his face.

"How can you reconcile that? I found happiness and when I went after it you tried to kill me! You would rather I died than be able to live the life I wanted!"

"You weren't the one I was aiming at."

Rose stopped mid-thought.

"I wanted to destroy him. When I watched you embrace after you jumped from the lifeboat I wanted to see him lying broken on the floor with blood trickling from his mouth."

She tried to speak. Nothing came. She couldn't tear her eyes away, couldn't even blink.

"You're sick," she finally managed to choke out. "How—"

"The idea of you with him made me ill. I spent _months_ trying to earn your respect and never got so much as a thank you, while he won everything effortlessly—your affection, your body, the promise of your _life_—after _two days—_"

"Cal—"

"I couldn't control it and it _drove me insane—_"

"Cal," she whispered. "Stop."

He didn't say anything else. Instead he shot her one last look that she would have liked to forget and then stormed from the room, letting the door slam shut.

Rose sank back onto the bed and began to sob.


	6. Chapter 6

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Six**

xXx

She was in a heap at the foot of the second-floor staircase with blood on her nightgown.

Obviously she had tripped, or perhaps flung herself down the steps in a moment of angst.

There was too much blood for the bleeding to have been external.

Cal was therefore quite surprised when the doctor, after examining her in her room, informed him that she had _not_ suffered a miscarriage but that she had torn something inside and would have to remain in bed while she recovered.

"I don't recall mentioning her condition to you."

"I'm well aware that she's several months along," replied the doctor. "She's been coming to me for two or three weeks."

"Of course she has," said Cal, smirking.

xXx

He was disappointed, almost.

"Caledon, you sly dog. I'll never understand where all of your luck comes from."

"I make my own luck," said Cal dispassionately, smashing a half burned cigarette into an ashtray. Though he realized now that he hated the thing growing inside Rose—hated where it had come from and what it meant—and also that he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it. What could he have done… pushed her down the stairs again?

If her fall had killed the baby—how _delightfully _simpler things might have become.

Yes, he would lose her again when she no longer needed him.

But he would also have nothing left to think about.

It must have been well past midnight. Cal had lost track of the time, lost track of the drinks, lost track of the mindless things his table companions were saying.

Vaguely it occurred to him that he had once enjoyed this sort of mingling.

xXx

Cal took his leave of the other gentlemen and stumbled out of the dark tavern. Yellow streetlights blurred and swam overhead as he made his way toward the car, where his chauffeur sat waiting.

"Late night, sir?" said a woman's voice from somewhere to his right, and Cal laughed too loudly.

"Not late enough," he heard himself reply, although he had no idea what he meant by it.

"The night is still young…"

Wiping spit from his mouth, Cal turned to look at her. She was in her early twenties, her lips and cheeks heavily painted, her angular face hovering somewhere between beauty and ugliness.

Probably a prostitute.

_You unimaginable bastard—_

xXx

She was limp and mechanical, cool and unyielding, not soft, wet, warm like dear sweet beautiful Rose would have been—

His hand dug brutally into the back of her neck as she slammed herself against him. He hoped she would bruise. He hoped she would remember him by the marks.

Because Caledon Hockley refused to be just another notch in anyone's belt.

xXx

The mansion was cold and silent and dark when he got home. He didn't care about waking the servants and didn't bother to be quiet. He dragged himself upstairs. Saliva kept filling his mouth and throat. His stomach was churning. He swallowed again and again and again, trying not to get violently sick on the floor.

Rose's bedroom door stood open.

Cal paused, gripped the doorframe for support. He could see her bathed in moonlight, lying on her side with the covers half off.

Her eyes shone in the dark.

She was awake.

"Cal," she choked out, her voice on the edge of tears.

All the sudden he saw her as pitiful and frail, a child trapped by mistakes she had perhaps not realized she was making—

Cal moved closer to the bed.

"How did I let it happen?" Rose whispered. "How did I come to this?"

He knew she was talking about much more than her tumble down the stairs.

"It doesn't matter how," said Cal, sitting next to her on the bed. She was medicated for the pain, he knew, probably only semi conscious of what she was saying. He could have said anything to her just then, any number of horrible things, abused her with every cruel thought he had ever had about her, and she wouldn't have been able to retaliate. She would just lay there was though she were dying.

Instead he reached out and gently touched the side of her face. It was wet with her tears.

"I just wanted…"

He didn't want her to speak, didn't want her to tell him what she wanted—

"I just wanted to be loved… happy… I didn't mean for…"

She wept.

She was reaching for him, holding on—

Through his drunken haze Cal knew he wasn't supposed to be there.

Rose probably didn't even realize who he was in her delirium.

Yes, she had called him by name, but he doubted he was more than just another figure to her.

He patted her awkwardly on the back, wishing he could tear himself away from her but completely incapable of doing it.

"I don't want to hurt myself," she whispered. "I don't want to have an accident… hurt my baby…"

She clung to him harder.

He couldn't bring himself to embrace her.

"If something happened… I couldn't… I would be… oh God…"

That horrible, blunt darkness he felt when he thought about her bastard child was rising in him again. He wanted even more to draw back from her. But still he didn't try to disengage her from him.

"Please don't let anything happen…"

Damn it, Rose.

"Please… Cal…"

There were so many things he could have said.

But none that she would have understood.

"Cal…"

"Nothing," he said softly, "is going to happen to you."

And then he found it within himself to pry her off and sloppily tuck her in when she slumped back into her pillows.

He staggered to his room and passed out drunk on top of his own bed. In the morning he woke up drenched in sweat and vomit, his mind shattering.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' was actually referred to as Maggie during her lifetime, but in the movie they call her Molly, so I'm sticking with that here.

* * *

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Seven**

xXx

Dim late afternoon sunlight touched the bluebird, deepening the shade of its turquoise wings and red bib.

Rose watched from where she knelt by the pond as it fluttered overhead and landed on a lily pad. Beyond it, the gold-tinted sunset shafted itself over every bit of summer landscape—branches and leaves and grass and dying dandelions. The pond's surface was eerily calm, reflecting out like a blackened mirror.

If she'd had an artist's eye, Rose thought she would have been quite absorbed sketching the scene in front of her.

Wait.

The bluebird turned its head and watched her with one beady black eye as she rummaged in her hand bag. She had a slip of paper and a nub of pencil in there, which she had used to write a note she had intended to thread under the door of Cal's study.

But she could write another note.

Rose spread the paper over her knee. In her mind's eye she saw part of Jack's face watching her over the top of his sketch pad, a lock of hair falling into his eye. She tried to remember how his hands had moved over the page, gliding pencil lines into each other…

She drew the curve of the bird's head and the point of its beak. A sudden breeze whipped across the pond then, disturbing the water, and the bird flapped its wings and shot up into the orange sky.

Rose stared at the drawing in her hand—could she even call it a drawing? A crescent and a triangle, both of them too boldly drawn. How had Jack's sketch lines looked so soft and subtle and real?

She crumpled the paper in her hand and threw it into the pond.

xXx

Any mail that arrived at the Hockley mansion was by default filtered through Cal. Rose's maid, a girl about her own age who rarely spoke beyond what was necessary, whom Rose had thought of up till then as pious and stupid, had slipped her the letter covertly.

"I found this in the sitting room," she said. "I don't think Mr. Hockley has had a chance to check the mail yet today."

Rose made a mental note to speak a little more kindly to the girl next time she was helping her dress.

The letter was from Molly Brown. Molly had heard news that ownership of Hockley Steel had been signed over to Nathan Hockley's only son Caledon after the terms of the contract had been fulfilled, which included a quick marriage to young debutante Rose Dewitt Bukater who was mistakenly thought to have perished during the sinking of the RMS _Titanic_ several months earlier.

Molly had been with her husband visiting relatives in the south. They'd be in Philadelphia overnight. Join me for tea if you want to get out of the house for a day, she said. She gave the name of the hotel she and her husband would be staying in.

There was no way that Cal would allow Rose to travel to Philadelphia to meet up with Molly Brown, a woman who rubbed his upper society sensibilities in all the wrong ways.

So Rose slipped a note under his study door to let him know where she'd gone, when she would be back, and why she felt the need to take off without any forewarning.

And she hurried to leave before he got back from the mill.

Until later, Cal.

xXx

"I couldn't believe it when I saw your name written up in the paper. It was like seeing a ghost!"

Rose sipped her tea in silence. She didn't know how to explain her situation, didn't want to sound burdensome or whiny, but she had found Molly to be a comforting presence on board the Titanic and now, something to bring her out for a moment from her cold, hushed existence.

Molly reached for the basket of scones. "So I'm guessing you must have gotten into a lifeboat later on? Last I saw your mother and Cal in New York they were still looking for you. Your name didn't turn up on the list of survivors."

"I… was one of the six people they pulled from the water. After the ship went down." She paused. "I'm lucky to be alive."

Molly shook her head. "I'll say so, darlin'."

Rose tried to smile.

"Something tells me there's more to this than you're letting on," said Molly, studying her across the table.

"Well," said Rose.

"To be honest, and pardon me if I'm out of line for saying so, but I was real surprised to see your name next to Hockley's—I don't know everything that went down during those few days, but I got the idea that—"

Polite society would have considered Molly very rude, prying into personal business that didn't concern her in the slightest, but Rose felt an overwhelming temptation to confide in her. So many things had been growing inside her for weeks, pressing up within her, trying to burst free, and she had shoved them back down because she trusted no one, least of all herself. She couldn't unload her feelings on the people in her life; she had no real friends, and anyone who might have understood was separated from her by professional and societal boundaries.

"You know you can talk to me if you need to get anything off your chest," Molly said, sensing Rose's internal struggle.

There was a long pause.

"I hid in steerage on the Carpathia and gave a different name when they asked," said Rose at last. "I never planned to go back with Mother and Cal. I wanted to bury my old life and start over on a clean slate."

Molly nodded again. "But…?"

"Well, I stayed in New York for a month and a half after the Carpathia docked. I had enough money to help me get by, but I was homeless and I couldn't find work…"

"So you were just knocking around the city all that time by yourself?"

"Yes. And then I…"

_When the ship docks, I'm getting off with you._

_This is crazy!_

_I know. It doesn't make any sense. That's why I trust it._

Rose swallowed. "And then I had to come back. I had to reveal myself to Cal and ask for his help…"

She put a hand against her stomach. Her body hadn't changed much yet, and laced up in her corset she looked absolutely no different than she ever had, but the meaning of the gesture wasn't lost on Molly.

"It isn't Cal's," she went on, no longer thinking, just speaking. "It's—"

"The steerage boy—?" At Rose's silence, she said, "Oh Rose. I'm so sorry, honey."

"Jack… Jack didn't make it," said Rose, her voice cracking. "He gave up his life to save mine."

_Promise me, Rose…_

She didn't want to tell Molly the details of their last moments together. She would take those with her to the grave. Some things were too painful, too private, too intimate to share with others.

xXx

In the morning, before Rose boarded the train back to Pittsburgh, Molly handed her a piece of paper with her home address written on it. "If you ever need anything," she said, "you write to me. I mean it. Anything at all."

Rose tried to smile and promised that she would keep in touch.

She arrived home mid afternoon, during a time when Cal would likely still be out. Her maid, the one who'd slipped her Molly's letter, met her at the door, her expression fearful. "Miss Rose—" she began, but she was cut off.

"I see Rose has decided to join us."

Cal stood behind the maid in the doorway and smiled at Rose, venomously. "Accompany her to the sitting room, Elizabeth," he said, addressing the maid but looking at Rose. "Her mother is quite anxious to know where she's been."


	8. Chapter 8

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Eight**

xXx

"You simply _can't_ go running off out of town overnight by yourself, without talking to me first."

Cal shoved the note at her—the note she had slipped under his study door. _I've gone to Philadelphia to visit a friend,_ it said. _I'll return tomorrow. I don't dare ask your permission. I know that you'll never grant it to me._

"I won't be controlled, Cal," said Rose softly. "I will not be controlled."

He wanted to grab her and shake her, shake her hard until she understood reason. Couldn't she see that it was in her own best interest to behave? Why did she insist upon drawing needless attention to herself, reflecting poorly on him and putting herself at risk? Every time she did something rebellious she made him look like an incompetent fool who couldn't keep any order in his life.

"You've made me look like an idiot. When your mother showed up and wanted to know why she couldn't see you I had to inform her that you'd run away while I was out—"

"Is that all you care about? How bad I make you look?"

"Goddamn it, Rose!"

He felt he was dangerously close to losing his temper. He didn't want to fly into a rage, overturn furniture or strike her, but she couldn't seem to understand that there was a certain point at which she needed to stop trying his patience and be quiet for the sake of peace.

"You said yourself that you didn't want to be my antagonist," said Rose. "If you really mean that, then you'll stop trying so hard to control every little thing about me and give me some breathing room."

"Yes, but you just _ran off_. By yourself. After you'd been in bed for a week recovering from a serious injury. You should have asked me first and you should have had a maid with you—"

"Would you have let me go?"

"I don't even know who you were with or where you stayed—"

"I went to visit with Molly Brown," she said, and then asked again, "So would you have let me go?"

Cal couldn't help but sneer a little. "I didn't realize you were in touch with that woman."

"As a matter of fact, she saw my name written up in the paper after I married you and sent me a letter," said Rose.

"I never saw anything addressed to you—"

"Of course you didn't, I took it from the mail when you were away."

Cal decided he was going to ignore that. "Next time you plan to go somewhere," he said, "you will consult me first."

Anger flitted across her face.

"I don't understand your petulance," he went on, leaning back in his chair as he lit a cigarette. "You asked me not to let you engage in any more reckless behavior—"

"I did nothing of the sort! Are you so obsessed with controlling me that you've imagined conversations between us?"

She didn't remember that night.

For the best, he supposed. Memories of all the things he had done and said made him cringe. He'd been a little harsher toward her the last few days, even, attempting to cancel out the moment of uncharacteristic tenderness between them.

"You've been quite antisocial since you returned, Rose," he said, changing the subject. "People are beginning to talk."

"I don't care."

"You can't keep refusing to attend any party or function that comes up. You'll be thought of as a recluse."

"_Cal_," she spat. "I. Don't. Care. I _don't care _what anyone thinks of me, least of all you."

She stormed from the room.

God, she was stupid.

xXx

"I don't understand her. Did she ever entertain the fantasy that she would be able to survive in the world on her own?"

Cal turned from the window to look at Ruth. She had arranged herself on the fainting couch with her tea, skirts fanned out, gloves folded neatly beside her. She was perfection and he hated her for it.

"She wanted to make herself disappear," he said in monotone. "But she came to her senses quickly enough."

Ruth smiled. It was the kind of smile that looked as though it could crack her face if it stayed on too long. "I want so dearly to believe it's true," she said. "I want to think that hardship… has helped Rose to learn an important lesson and to realize how selfish she's been…"

The smile faded.

"But I can't help feeling that there's more to this than meets the eye. Her change of heart… it was so… sudden…"

"Mmm, yes," said Cal absently, trying to decide how he ought to handle her. Her esteem for him had been damaged aboard the Titanic, and although he had won back most of it by assuming her debt after she came to him in a display of teary hysterics that barely masked her vague threats, he'd come to realize that she had to be treated with kid gloves. Money gave him the upper hand between them, but she had seen a side of him that he preferred to keep hidden and the last thing he needed was for her to start talking.

"Tell me the truth, Mr. Hockley. There was another reason she came back. I know it."

Cal studied her a moment longer and then, making up his mind, crossed the room and took a seat across from her.

"I'll speak to you in confidentiality," he said. "You can't repeat this to anyone."

Ruth's eyebrows arched in question.

"As I'm sure you recall, Rose's infatuation with… Dawson… led her to behave impetuously."

"Of course."

"She whored herself to him."

Ruth blinked several times.

"He impregnated her."

"Oh," she whispered, raising a manicured hand to her mouth.

Cal smiled darkly. "I imagine you can fill in the rest for yourself."

"Her child—"

"Dawson's. Yes."

"Are you certain?"

"Quite certain." Under any other circumstances, his admission that he hadn't slept with her daughter out of wedlock would probably have been a relief to her… but now, he knew, it was a grievous disappointment.

She stared at him in shocked silence.

"It's vital that we keep this between us," said Cal. "If word got out—"

"Of course," replied Ruth, her voice hushed. "No one must know."

xXx

Ruth departed back to Philadelphia early the next morning. Cal was in the kitchen, reading the paper over coffee, when Rose entered the room in a huff. She was still in her nightgown, her flaming hair in an uncombed tumble down her back.

She seemed so very, very young, _painfully _young, a little girl on the verge of a temper tantrum. At times during their engagement he had forgotten that she was thirteen years younger than him; she was a smart girl, and she could hold her end of an intellectual conversation when she wanted to. But every time she got herself into trouble, every time she became emotional, she changed in front of him and he was reminded of the fact that she was seventeen, scarcely more than a child.

Rather than explode, however, she poured herself a mug of coffee and joined him at the table. He watched her, waiting for whatever was coming.

She was silent.

He returned to his paper.

"It's a beautiful morning," said Rose. Her voice was angry despite her words. "Lovely traveling conditions for my mother on her way back to Philadelphia."

Annoyance snapped in Cal and for a moment he would have liked nothing more than to scream at her and throw a tantrum of his own. _Why can't you EVER be satisfied?_

Instead he said, without raising his eyes from the paper, "What do you want, Rose?"

She slammed her mug down, sloshing coffee onto the tablecloth. "Why did you tell her?"

"Come again?"

"Why did you tell Mother that I'm carrying Jack's child?"

Finally Cal looked up. "How did you know that?"

"I overheard you in the sitting room yesterday. Why did you tell her? It was none of her business."

"You're her daughter, it's her business entirely."

"No it isn't!" Rose leaned across the table, slamming the newspaper flat and grabbing him roughly by the arm. "Don't you see her? Don't you realize what her motives are?"

Clenching his jaw, Cal pried her hand off his arm.

"She forced us together because of money. She was willing to sell her own daughter's happiness so that she wouldn't have to give up her life of luxury. I'm not a person to her—I'm an object. You must be able to understand that because you see me the same way."

"I'm not going to have this discussion with you, Rose." For the second time he returned to his paper. "I can't imagine why you would want to keep things from your mother anyway."

She said nothing. She didn't storm off; she sat in silence for a good ten minutes, only speaking once to a maid—"No thank you"—when she was offered more coffee.

Cal ignored her.

"Why do I even bother trying to get anything across to you?" she whispered at last.

He looked up in time to watch her vanish out the door.


	9. Chapter 9

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Nine**

xXx

The weather was strange that night. Rainy, unseasonably cool, almost stiflingly humid. Inside the car, Rose lifted a hand to the fogged window and traced the outline of a bird with the tip of her gloved finger.

"_What_ is that supposed to be?" said Cal, the sneer evident in his voice.

For someone on the way to his own birthday celebration, he was in an exceptionally dark mood.

Rose sighed and rubbed out the drawing, refusing to let him mock her.

In the week since her mother had left, she'd said hardly a word to Cal and he had reciprocated her silence. True, he had stopped being antagonistic and seemed to have given up on controlling how she spent her time or where she happened to wander, but the total stillness that came with being ignored was almost harder to bear. Without any external chatter to drown out her thoughts, her mind refused to calm itself for even a minute.

xXx

She stayed on his arm and allowed herself to be an object of decoration, as was expected. She smiled prettily and spoke only when spoken to. Years of programming had made it easy for her to be a proper young lady when she so chose.

Through dinner and cocktails she forced herself to endure mindless talk of business and politics and philanthropy, Cal's well-wishers, congratulations—congratulations on their marriage, congratulations on Cal's takeover of Hockley Steel, congratulations on _their baby _(whose real father would never be known), and by the way Cal, have a _very _happy birthday.

The moment Cal brushed her off to wander deeper into the crowd, she slipped out into the lamp-lit courtyard and breathed for the first time in what felt like hours.

xXx

She glimpsed him later in the poker room, caught up in a game, indulging himself in brandy and cigars. It was late. She was almost dead on her feet and beginning to feel nauseated from the crushing blur of sensations around her—loud orchestra music, chatter, women's painful, brightly colored evening dresses, the smell of perfume and cologne and food and tobacco smoke.

The party had run its course for Rose, and as soon as Cal finished up his game of poker she was going to ask him if they could leave. Perhaps he would see her distress. Perhaps he would take pity on her and agree.

Perhaps.

She stood back and watched the scene in the smoke room for a moment. One of the men said something to Cal, who laughed brashly and threw back another brandy shot.

How could one person manage to look so arrogant, so _obnoxious?_

Rose turned away.

Her mother swept her up minutes later and shoved her into conversation with Louise Carnegie, wife of steel mogul Andrew Carnegie who was a friend and business mentor of Nathan Hockley's. Rose knew her mother expected her to be charming and perfect like she'd been all night, make the Hockleys look good, but her patience for acting had worn thin and she stopped caring.

When she finally turned away, Cal had disappeared from the poker room.

Damn it.

She ran off into the crowd to find him, ignoring her mother when she called for her to come back.

xXx

"Are you enjoying your party?"

Rose had intended to sneak up on Cal, ask the question very dryly, but somehow she floundered. When she saw him standing alone outside on the balcony and opened the door to join him he had looked up. And when she said the words her voice came out sounding foreign, like it belonged to someone else.

"I have a _splitting _headache."

Rose looked at him, startled.

That wasn't the sort of thing he would normally tell her, even if it were true, even if it were all he could think about. Normally he would have smirked and said "I'm having the time of my life, sweetpea."

But those days were gone.

He leaned against the balcony rail, his hand shaking slightly as he took a drag from his cigarette.

"Cal," Rose said, alarmed. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine," he replied, answering her directly for once and not putting on airs, shooting back something sarcastic or telling her off for asking.

In spite of herself, Rose felt uncomfortable. She had never seen him like this, ever.

She stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. "Would you like to leave early?"

"Yes. Run and tell Hoffman I'll be out in a minute," he said, referring to his chauffeur. He turned to go back inside without another glance at her. She watched him through the arched windows as he got dragged into conversation with an older couple she didn't know. He had straightened his posture and plastered the million dollar smile back on his face. Many times before Rose had seen him in this state and wondered whether it were genuine or not. Now, she didn't wonder anymore.

xXx

She realized he was rather drunk as they walked from the hotel out to the car, and her discomfort increased. What had happened to him? When had he let himself become such a wreck?

He didn't need help walking but she went with him to his bedroom anyway, wondering frantically where all the servants were. It was late, she supposed—they had probably gone to bed, probably assumed that she and Cal would have remained a lot longer at the party.

She wanted to get away. She wanted to retreat to her own room and lose herself.

Cal collapsed on his bed. "Get Edith for me," he said, leaning forward with one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sudden wash of light when Rose lit an oil lamp.

Rose thought that was the name of the head maid. Who, perhaps, had some sort of medical knowledge—she looked old enough to have had previous training as a nurse.

"I don't know where she is," said Rose quietly. She sat next to him on the bed and wracked her brain for something she could do to help.

It wasn't quite that she was worried about him for his own sake. No, it was more… she couldn't quite describe it, not even to herself, but seeing him like this _upset_ her. He had turned into someone else, someone who wasn't Cal. She didn't want to watch him drown in his own pathetic vulnerability. She hated who he was most of the time, but just then she would have given anything to have him back.

She had wanted him to pity her. Well, perhaps not pity, but at least empathize and understand.

But she had never wanted to see him for what he actually was—not a monster, as she had once thought, but a deterioration of permanence that had never really existed.

"Rose—"

"Shh."

And for once he didn't tell her to shut up, didn't tell her to watch herself.

She helped him remove his jacket and draped it over a chair.

"Just lie down, Cal," she whispered. She dimmed the lamp because she could see it wasn't helping his headache, and then she turned to the door to leave, but he got up and stopped her.

"Cal," she said, trying to pull him back to the bed.

"I want—"

"Shh. Just lie down," she repeated. She put her hands on his shoulders and forced him to sit again, then went over to the basin in the corner and brought him a glass of water. After a moment of hesitation she returned to sit beside him, deciding she would have to coax him into bed before she could hurry off to her own room.

"I did my best, Rose." His fingers went limp around the empty glass and it rolled across the floorboards. "I don't know what else I could have done. Nothing was ever good enough for you."

Rose looked at him, her mouth suddenly dry.

"It's fine," she said, although that wasn't what she had meant to say, she ought to seize on this and scream at him, scream until he understood her, until he realized that regardless of how spurned he might have felt it was _nothing _compared to what she experienced when she thought of the future that lay ahead of her—

"I never tricked myself into believing that I'd ever have more than your respect, but you denied me even that."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. It wasn't an apology for anything she had done; it was an apology for the fact that he viewed her in such a light. She had tried to save her own vitality, and he saw that as selfish and ungrateful. His ignorance could have made her weep.

Again she tried to get up, but he grabbed her, pulled her back. "Not that again," he growled, giving her a shake. She could smell the tobacco and liquor on his breath. "You always knew exactly what you wanted to say but you couldn't give me anything more than one word replies."

"Cal—"

"How did you expect me to fix my mistakes when you refused to tell me what they were?"

Rose could hardly believe what she was hearing. She tried once more to free herself, but he wouldn't let go. She stopped struggling.

And she thought back to their relationship before Jack.

It was true, of course, that she had been less than communicative. He hadn't often tried to talk to her sincerely, or try to get to know who she was, and the fact that her mother had pressured her so hard to accept his proposal had made her even more predisposed against him. From the moment they met, at a yacht party thrown by a mutual family friend, Rose had written him off as just another spoiled aristocrat.

Which he was. His arrogance and snide lack of interest in meaningful connection had put her off; later on, when she'd begun to see hints of a controlling and sometimes even violent streak, she had been frightened. There had been one afternoon she remembered in particular, when they had been having lunch together, and a maid had accidentally knocked over a cup of tea into his lap. He'd snapped—thrown the empty teacup so it shattered on the floor at her feet, ordered her to pack her belongings and had Spicer Lovejoy escort her out. After that, any thought Rose might have had about trying to relate to him had dissolved and she had retreated into herself. It had been a stupid incident but somehow, it caused her growing epiphany to peak. Cal didn't have it in him to be patient or understanding, so what hope did she have for their relationship?

Once or twice she had seen a flash of something else. Very brief moments during which his façade seemed to flicker and she wondered, in the back of her mind, if there might be something underneath. But if she tried to look closer it was gone, vanished just as soon as it had appeared.

She assumed he was a lost cause and resigned herself to suffering.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

And this time it wasn't just that she felt sorry _for _him. This time she wondered, in spite of the unacceptable treatment Cal had subjected her to, if maybe she had it in her to give some of her own behavior a second glance.

Because she knew she was far from perfect.

Cal still held her roughly, his fingers digging into her arms.

She looked up into his reddened eyes and searched.

For anything, a spark, a window into his thoughts, a flicker of understanding. But no. His eyes were vacuous and dead. He was a bitter drunk, and she would never know him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered a third time, almost in tears.

And for the first time she didn't cry for herself… she cried for what existed between them, for what he might have been in some other life.

"Did you ever for even a moment feel more than just resentment?" he asked in monotone, as though he already knew the answer.

She shook her head, and a single tear spilled down her cheek. "No," she whispered, hardly able to choke the word out.

Later she would find it impossible to remember whether she had leaned forward or he had—perhaps they both had, at the same time—but she did remember registering surprise, that she didn't go stiff and cold when their lips brushed. She had kissed him before on the occasions when he'd pressured her to consummate their relationship, hoping that it would sate him to prevent anything more from happening, but she had been quite wooden during those moments and had blotted the memories from her mind. Now, something shifted, and at some place deep within herself she forgot who he was and what he had done.

She could feel his heart pounding. And she remembered, or perhaps realized for the first time, that he was actually alive…

His hand moved to the back of her head, digging into her hair, increasing the pressure between them, and she could taste the brandy on his tongue, and maybe this was different now, maybe something had _changed_, maybe he _needed her—_

_Are you nervous?_

_No… _

… _you're trembling._

_I'll be alright._

Reality hit Rose like a sudden blow to the solar plexus, and she could have sworn that for a fraction of a second her heart stopped.

She pulled back.

Her eyes were closed and she could see every line and shadow of Jack's face, feel his hands brushing over her skin, rough from work but gentle and full of care, and in her memory Cal's expression was tightening and her face stung as though she had just been slapped—

When she opened her eyes she saw Cal as he was now, not polished for dinner as he had been that night but drunk and sick, his eyes filled not with rage but with bitterness and resignation.

"Leave now, Rose," he said blankly.

She stood and hurried from the room without looking at him again.

She could hardly breathe.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** I don't know ANYTHING about stocks and I'm sure the business stuff in this chapter is technically and maybe historically inaccurate, even though delisting is an actual process that I tried to research.

* * *

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Ten**

xXx**  
**

The delisting notice had been delivered to Nathan Hockley's desk in May; Nathan had turned it over to Cal after the wedding. "Business has its up and downs," he'd told his son, as if Cal didn't already know this—he had been conditioned for the eventual takeover of Hockley Steel since he was thirteen and there was very little that he didn't understand.

Chuckling, Nathan went on to add, "A successful businessman does whatever it takes to stay at the top, Caledon. I have no doubt that you'll be able to maneuver around this… initial stumbling block."

The delisting of stock didn't necessarily spell doom for a corporation, but it was often the first step on the road to bankruptcy. Major stock exchanges, like exclusive clubs, were highly selective because of the profitability and prestige they offered companies; in order to be listed, and therefore made public, firms had to meet and maintain certain numerical standards. If a company's stockholder level fell below a certain point, the head of the stock exchange's Listing Qualifications Department was likely to issue a ninety-day warning notice. Get your numbers up or you're dropped.

While it was possible for a delisted company to recover and continue to make money in the private sector, finances were much less secure and a delisting was always a black spot on a company's record so stockholders were less likely to invest if they believed their fortunes weren't in good hands.

Unfortunately, despite the best marketing efforts of the firm under Cal's authority, stockholder numbers had stabilized but failed to rise back up to previous levels. It seemed that Nathan had done very little to fix the problem within the first sixty days of receiving the delisting notice, and Cal couldn't help but feel a little disgusted with him even though he knew his father had meant it as a test of his competency as a businessman.

Cal was running out of time, and all tactical approaches had fallen short of fixing the problem. He would have to move on to the next level of persuasion.

xXx

"I'm afraid that it simply cannot be arranged for any price. Policy allots for a ninety day trial. I myself could get in serious trouble if I were to extend your due date, and such things are somewhat difficult to keep under wraps."

"Of course," said Cal with half a smile. "I wouldn't want to put you in an awkward position."

Subtly he studied the man behind the desk. Any successful businessman understood the necessity of learning to read the motives and morals of his constituents, and Cal was no exception; over time he had grown quite practiced at categorizing anyone he rubbed shoulders with professionally. And he had known from the very beginning that Walter Sullivan was a man concerned with his reputation but lacking much of anything underneath.

Sullivan smiled. Or rather, his upper lip curled back to reveal his front row of teeth. He was sixty something with a ruinous face full of pouches and popped blood vessels and scars probably from cystic acne in his youth. "Might I suggest withdrawing your funds voluntarily. It won't do you any benefit in the public's eyes, but at least you won't have record of a delisting in your history."

"I had planned on that, in the case that you were… unable to help me," Cal agreed. He snapped his briefcase shut and stood, extending his hand to Sullivan. "Good of you to take my appointment on such short notice. I imagine you'll contact me when you have the paperwork together."

_Do something, you idiot,_ said a voice at the back of his head.

_Stop sniveling like a little girl,_ he remembered his father saying almost two decades ago as he towered over Cal, acting out the role of a ruthless company exec. _I'm trying to help you. You'll never be a successful businessman if you don't get thicker skin than this_.

"It's a pity we couldn't have come to an agreement," he added, putting just the right amount of subliminal hatred into his voice. "But as we all know well, business comes with its share of ups and downs."

"Indeed," said Sullivan. "On a brighter note, did I hear correctly that your wife is in the family way?"

"Hmm? Oh—yes, yes she is."

"Then I offer you my congratulations. You're a lucky man, Hockley. A beautiful young wife and a child on the way… if only your finances were in such perfect order." He gave a good-natured laugh.

"If only," repeated Cal with a fake smile.

"I always found Miss Dewitt Bukater most charming. If I were a little younger I would have snapped her up myself. Ha ha."

Cal returned the laugh, wishing he could hit Sullivan.

"Good afternoon, Walter," he said as he turned to leave.

And then he had an idea.

"Won't you come to dinner sometime?" he asked at the door. "As a thank you for your efforts. We can finalize the paperwork then."

"I would be delighted—if only I hadn't been so flooded lately here at the office—"

"Come on man, surely you can find it within yourself to take an evening off. I insist."

Sullivan flashed his awkward smile. "I can't resist such a forceful invitation," he said. "It would be a pleasure to join you and your wife for dinner."

"Friday at seven?"

"I'll most certainly be there."

And it'll be a pleasure to _have_ you, Walter, thought Cal, smiling cynically to himself as he left the building.

xXx

He had known she was thinking about Dawson when she pulled away, and he couldn't bear to look at her when he knew what was going through her head.

Never would he have told her to leave otherwise. Goddamn it, this was what he'd _wanted_—she had opened to him, she had let down her guard long enough to forget how much she detested him, even if it was only for a moment.

It should never have happened.

Cal had very little patience for being taunted with what he couldn't have.

xXx

"Come in."

Cal pushed open the door and looked inside. Rose sat at the bay window in her nightgown, a book open across her lap. She glanced at him and then returned her eyes to the page. "Did you need something?" she asked.

Ignoring the fact that she obviously didn't want him there, he shut the door and took a seat next to her. "I don't know quite how to put this without upsetting you in some way or another," he said, hesitating. "But—"

Rose looked up.

"—if you'll recall, _that night—_"

"Yes?" she said.

"—my overcoat… I had left the diamond in my pocket, and you—"

"Are you actually daring to ask me about this?" she demanded, her eyes darkening. "You really only care for money, Cal, don't you?"

He had known she'd react this way. "I believe it's completely within my right to ask about it," he said, "as it was a priceless item filed under my name."

"If you must know, I still have it."

She returned to her book.

Rather than ask her for it, Cal found himself asking another question: "Why didn't you sell it?"

"Pardon me?"

"You were scrounging in the streets for more than a month and yet you had an object in your possession that was worth a fortune—why did you not sell it and forgo coming to me for help?"

She stared at him. Her eyes were glassy and blank. "I tried," she said. "I took it to a pawn shop in New York and they told me it was worth several million, but they said they would have to run a background check on it because of its value and fame. I knew it would be filed under your name or your father's name, so I couldn't."

"Can I see it?"

Rose shot him a look of disgust and then walked to her vanity and opened a drawer. Dim lamplight streamed through the diamond, throwing a scatter of deep blue reflections against the walls and ceiling.

She dropped it back and shut the drawer. "There," she said. "You've seen it."

Cal could easily have snapped on her—it was, after all, his diamond, and she was acting as though it were irrefutably hers—but he decided against it. For now, he didn't need the Heart of the Ocean. As a last resort he could take it from her vanity, if his plan somehow fell through and he had to resort to high-level bribery.

"Alright then," he said. He got up and made his way to the door. Rose stood watching him like she expected him to grab for the diamond and run. Her arms were crossed, her expression stony.

She had looked at him like that often, while they were engaged. He knew it was intended to intimidate him and make him feel foolish for thinking he had even a chance at breaking through the walls she chose to erect around herself, and it was rather effective. But he was older, stronger and more worldly than her in every way and those were things he had constantly reminded himself of in order to offset the insecurity that she sometimes stirred up in him.

"Goodnight, Cal," she said, not budging from her spot near the vanity.

He looked at her and hesitated. He could feel something setting in, some sort of sentiment—and perhaps it had something to do with her, but he couldn't begin to find the words he'd need to express it and the sight of her expressionless face left him cold.

The feeling retreated.

"Goodnight," he replied, and quickly left.

xXx

Walter Sullivan arrived promptly at seven that Friday. Rose had been irritated when Cal told her he'd invited Sullivan to dinner.

"I can't stand that man," she said. "He reminds me of a hog."

Cal scoffed at her, told her she was being childish and that he needed her to cooperate because he was about to clinch a very important business deal.

This was mostly a lie, but it could have been construed as the truth depending upon one's perspective.

Cal's gut twisted with nerves as he paced his study, waiting for the hour to strike. His plan was simple and probably foolproof, but he knew that what he was about to do would end Sullivan's goodwill toward him. Sullivan would look at him with a new light of understanding in his eyes and he would never recommend anyone to do business with him again, despite the fact that he wouldn't be able to take any direct negative action against him. But it had to be done. The power and prestige of Hockley Steel was at stake.

Slamming the door, Cal left his study and stormed into Rose's room without bothering to knock. Rose was in her undergarments, having her maid help her with her corset.

"Cal!" she said, reaching for her dressing gown in modesty as though he had walked in on her naked.

Of course, she'd had absolutely no qualms about stripping for Dawson so he could sketch her. What did modesty matter between a couple of almost-strangers?

"Leave us, Elizabeth," Cal commanded, and the maid darted out like a scared rabbit.

He went to Rose, gripped the strings of her corset and began tearing at them somewhat viciously.

"_Cal!_" she exclaimed again, clearly scandalized at his behavior. "What on earth—"

"Never mind, dear," he said absently. He didn't think her body had changed very much at three and a half months along in her pregnancy, but he never saw her undressed to know for sure—she was always either laced up in her corset or hidden under her flowing nightgown. He needed her to look stunning, and paranoia made him concerned with even the slightest difference in her figure.

"Why don't you wear this tonight?" he said, ignoring her continued protests as he went to her vanity and withdrew the diamond. "It's beautiful on you, despite whatever memories you've probably attached to it now."

"I can dress myself, Cal!" She pointed to the door in a wordless order for him to leave.

He unclasped the necklace and fastened it around her neck before she could protest. She gaped at him in disbelief.

"There," he said, brushing his fingers along her neck. "You're a vision."

He left without giving her a moment to respond or even react.

At dinner Sullivan was jovial and dense, as he always was, and he ate lots of veal and drank lots of wine, as Cal had known he would. He looked often at Rose, who had removed the necklace but still radiated pure, innocent, youthful beauty. Cal saw to it that the servants kept Sullivan's wine glass filled.

Afterward Cal suggested they all retire to the sitting room. Rose wanted to return to her room to rest, but Cal insisted that she stay and make small talk. He led her to the sofa and sat her down next to Sullivan while he took a chair across from them.

"Fetch the champagne," said Cal to a maid. "Would you care for one, Walter?"

"Don't mind if I do," said Sullivan with a curl of his upper lip. Rose's description of him had been rather astute; he did have a certain hoglike quality.

He leaned forward to clink his glass against Cal's, shifting slightly over Rose to reach. Cal watched her squirm in discomfort.

"I must thank you again for your kind dinner invitation," said Sullivan. "It was high time I took a night away from work. Ha ha."

"We're more than thrilled that you could join us," Cal replied in a bored tone that didn't match his words. "Aren't we, darling?"

"Yes," said Rose, narrowing her eyes in a way that made him think she'd begun to catch onto the fact that he had ulterior motives.

Cal rose from his seat and moved to the window, turning his back to Sullivan, but he could see a reflection in the glass. Sullivan had grown red in the face from food and alcohol. What an idiot.

"What say you about that election, eh Hockley?" Sullivan prattled. "I read in the _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette_ the other day that Wilson's pulling ahead in polls. Don't know what I think about that, I'm a bit of a Taft man myself. Ha ha."

"I haven't followed the election as closely as I might have," replied Cal, glancing over his shoulder. "I'm afraid my patience for political discourse is running short lately."

"Of course, of course! How repetitive it does become after a while," said Sullivan with another of his hog smiles. Cal watched his eyes flit over the room as he seemed to cast around for something to talk about. They landed on the wall a few yards from Cal. "What an unusual painting," he said.

It was one that Rose had insisted upon mounting above the fireplace. She'd claimed that the room felt cold and uninviting, that her personal touch would improve it. Cal hadn't made an issue of it, although he personally found the painting distasteful—some sort of bizarre portrait of a woman and child picnicking beneath a parasol. Rose called it art.

"That was a selection of Rose's," Cal said. "I don't care for it, myself."

Sullivan stood and moved closer, squinting at the portrait. "How strange," he murmured.

"I think it's lovely," said Rose. "So serene."

Chuckling, Sullivan started back to the sofa.

Cal saw his chance.

He stomped one foot on the edge of the oriental rug and gave it a violent jerk.

Sullivan went stumbling. Cal knew his balance would be poor after all he'd had to drink.

Arms flailing, he pitched forward on top of Rose, his face pushing into her chest.

"Oh!" Rose cried out in surprise and horror.

Cal took one look at the scene before him and flew into a premeditated rage. "You son of a bitch," he growled, grabbing roughly at Sullivan. "How dare you throw yourself at _my wife! _And in my presence!"

He plowed a fist into Sullivan's face. Sullivan seemed disoriented as blood gushed from his nose. "Certainly you don't think," Sullivan garbled when Cal shoved him away in disgust. "Must have lost my balance—"

"I'll say you lost your balance!" Cal shouted. "Now get out of my sight! Baxter," he called for his valet, "escort Mr. Sullivan out this instant."

"Mr. Hockley, this is all a misunderstanding," Sullivan protested as Baxter hauled him to his feet. "I didn't intend—"

"_Out!_" Cal screamed.

Baxter dragged Sullivan away and silence fell over the sitting room. Stricken, Rose looked up at Cal.

"You _staged_ that," she whispered in utter incredulity. "I saw you pull the rug out from under him!"

"I had to," said Cal, straightening his dinner jacket. "There's no need for you to understand."

"Yes, there is! Is this about money somehow? Is that it? Did you want someone to blackmail?"

Cal merely smiled at her.

He knew her esteem for him had just plummeted to a new low. But there was nothing he could do about that.

After all, a successful businessman does whatever it takes to stay at the top.


	11. Chapter 11

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Eleven**

xXx

"Are you sure you feel well enough, Miss Rose?"

Rose tried to smile at Elizabeth, who sat opposite her in the car. "I have to get out," she said, although in the week since Walter Sullivan's visit she hadn't had much energy. It was like she had used up all her strength watching Cal do the things that Cal did. "I've been caged up in that house too long."

Downtown Pittsburgh hosted an open market every Saturday. Rose had gone before—not any time recently, but it seemed like a good excuse to go somewhere.

Perhaps something to take her mind off recent events.

She felt sick when she thought about it. Her moment of weakness on the night of Cal's birthday had been a mistake, and she regretted wondering whether she ought to blame herself for their failed relationship. Cal was a bastard, and whatever her faults, his would always be tenfold.

xXx

The open market didn't lend itself to class distinction. Rich and poor alike strolled along either side of the wide paved street, examining the goods under each tent. There were fresh fruits and vegetables, fabric and jewelry, toys, art, books.

It was a breath of air for Rose, a place she could go to break out for a moment from her lonely, detached existence.

Rose led the way, dodging around clusters of people ahead of Elizabeth. She'd rather have come by herself, but Cal insisted she take a maid if she went out and she didn't think it was worth arguing about.

She stopped at a tent to look at scarves. They were pinned up on a line, scarves of every color and pattern, imports from Russia or Poland.

As she was running her fingers over folds of fabric, a little girl shot out of nowhere and ran in front of her so that she had to take a step back. A boy chased after the girl. They were laughing and shrieking.

"William! Caroline! Come back here, you two!" Flashing Rose a beleaguered smile, their harried-looking mother went after them. "I'm sorry, miss. They're all over if I turn my back for even a moment!"

Rose returned the smile and watched as the woman caught up to her children. She knelt and used her apron to wipe a smudge of dirt off the boy's face. A man with a beard joined them, ruffled the girl's hair, picked her up and swung her over his shoulder as she giggled.

"I want a ride too, Daddy!" cried the little boy, tugging on the man's arm.

Her heart lurching, Rose turned away from the family.

I'm never going to have that, she realized.

She would love Jack's child and heap as much affection on it as she had inside her in the hopes that it wouldn't have to grow up feeling cold and forgotten as she had, but it wasn't the same. Cal had agreed to take responsibility for the child; he had not agreed to be its father. Rose imagined that he would be a distant and intimidating figure, someone that her child looked at with fear and awe rather than love.

Jack would have made a wonderful dad.

"Miss Rose? Are you alright?"

She felt Elizabeth tap her cautiously on the shoulder.

"Fine," she said, brushing aside her thoughts.

xXx

The loud chatter of the crowd was everywhere, and she almost missed hearing any mewls of pain.

"What's that?" she said to no one in particular, moving closer to the sound. It sounded like an animal—maybe a raccoon or a cat—although its cries were muffled.

Rose followed the sound until it grew louder. Elizabeth seemed to hang back, not wanting to wander off the street, but Rose refused to slow down.

As she got closer she could hear laughter.

She stepped in front of an alleyway.

Two lower-class boys in matching gray outfits were huddled over an animal. They each held a rock in one hand. They were smashing the animal with their rocks, laughing as they beat it to death.

"What do you think you're doing?" Rose demanded. "Stop it!"

The boys took one look at her, dropped their rocks and scurried off.

She fell to her knees in front of the animal, not caring if she got her dress dirty. It was barely recognizable as a cat. Its orange-striped fur was matted with blood.

"How awful," she said to Elizabeth. "Why would anyone do something like this? I'd smack some common sense into those boys if I were their mother…"

She prodded the cat with her index finger. Its paw moved. It was alive.

"Come over here and help me," she said, gathering the top layer of her skirt.

"Miss—"

Rose looked at Elizabeth. "Come on, I need your help!"

Elizabeth looked squeamish and uncomfortable, but she did as she was told. Rose wrapped her skirt around the cat's body. Blood stained the mint green fabric.

When she got back into the car she ordered the chauffeur to drive slowly. She didn't want the poor thing getting bumped and shaken.

xXx

She laid the cat on the kitchen table after pushing aside the tablecloth and asked Elizabeth to bring her a wet rag. She knew she couldn't help much. The cat was almost dead.

Rose dabbed at its bloody fur with the rag. It gave a pained, feeble squeak and twitched an ear.

"What in God's name, Rose—"

She glanced up at the sound of Cal's voice. He walked up behind her and looked down over her shoulder at the cat. His face contorted in disgust. "For Christ's sake! What is this doing in my kitchen? Get rid of it, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth reached for the cat but Rose stopped her. "Wait," she said. "I ran across a couple of boys stoning it to death."

"Thought you'd bring it back here and perform a life-saving operation on the table?" asked Cal.

Normally his words would have made her angry, but for some reason just then they stung. "I couldn't just leave it there to die," she said. "I…"

She trailed off. She realized that she'd had no real purpose in bringing the cat home with her and that any explanation she could give would bounce right off Cal.

"I felt sorry for it," she said.

She looked down at the cat. It had stopped moving. Was it dead?

"Surely you can't have imagined that there was anything you could do to help this animal," said Cal tonelessly.

Rose opened her mouth to object.

"It needs medical attention. Elizabeth," he said as he turned to leave, "call the veterinarian, won't you?"

He was gone.

Rose stared at the spot where he had been standing a moment earlier, confused.

She looked at Elizabeth, who tried and failed to offer a sympathetic smile, and then back to the cat.

"Well," she said. "Cal's right. It needs medical attention."

A veterinarian arrived within the hour, and Rose watched him breathe life back into the cat. Although she wasn't entirely conscious of it, Jack's voice was ringing in her ears.

_They've got you trapped, Rose._


	12. Chapter 12

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Twelve**

xXx

Cal wasn't entirely sure what kind of reaction he had expected from Rose, and he shouldn't have been surprised at her total apathy, but somehow he was.

"Your mother's very ill. I just received a telegram."

She looked at him blankly. "Hmm," she said. "Can I see it?"

Ruth had fallen under a particularly harsh spell of pneumonia. Her health had been up and down since that night spent huddling in the frozen lifeboat; Cal knew she'd never been what you would call robust, and she came down easily with colds and flues and other minor illnesses. She had already battled pneumonia earlier that spring, right after the sinking back in April, but had seemed to recover well enough with the proper care. Cal had assumed that was more psychosomatic than anything else—her body's reaction to shock and grief.

Cal booked last-minute tickets on the train to Philadelphia. They would leave in a few days. Rose asked passively if she might remain behind.

"I don't feel like traveling," she said.

"Rose, that's absurd. This may be the last time you get to see your mother."

She raised a hand to her forehead. "But I'm ever so faint," she said. It was painfully obvious to Cal that she was sneering at him.

He left her alone, knowing she would come regardless of what she said.

And she did.

They left before daybreak. It was a wet, hazy, colorless August morning, and Cal felt as though he had been sucked into some surreal alternate universe. He and Rose exchanged hardly a word during the ride to Philadelphia and he filled the silence trying to chat about business and politics to his valet, Jonathan Baxter, who was dumb as a dog and could offer only monosyllabic grunts and affirmations.

Ruth's nurse told them that Ruth was resting when they arrived at the Dewitt Bukater mansion and that no one ought to disturb her.

Rose shut herself up in her old bedroom without a word.

Almost like she couldn't have cared less.

xXx

"You look well, Ruth."

It was an outrageous lie and he didn't know why he bothered to say it. She looked like a corpse. Her skin was a sickly yellow-white, she had lost an alarming amount of weight and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She kept raising one fist, knotted around a handkerchief, to her mouth when she coughed. It was a terrible cough. She sounded as though she were vomiting up wood splinters.

She gave the weakest attempt at a smile. "You needn't flatter me, Mr. Hockley."

Cal felt no remorse, only uncertainty. Ruth had often been a source of mixed feelings to him. At times he found her repulsive, utterly lacking in anything, like a china doll, but there were also moments when he welcomed her presence. She was the embodiment of everything that he saw as comprehensive and stable in his life. To be with her was to be safe.

She covered her mouth with the handkerchief and coughed. "Is Rose in good health?" she asked, her eyes watering. "I sent a maid to fetch her, but it seemed she was in bed with a headache."

Cal knew that Rose had been in the library reading, not lying in bed with a headache.

"Rose is in excellent health. I'm sure her affliction was quite temporary."

"I would very much like to see her, if it wouldn't be too much to ask."

"Of course it wouldn't," said Cal, patting her hand. He stood. "I'll send her in."

The library was the first place he checked, and that was where he found her, although she was staring out the window now rather than reading.

"Your mother wants to see you."

She turned her head to look at him. "I don't feel up to it just now," she said.

"Rose, you _have _to go and see her. She's on her deathbed and she wants a chance to say goodbye."

"I doubt it," said Rose, narrowing her eyes. "She just wants a chance to let me know once and for all what a disappointment I turned out to be."

"Rose!" Cal crossed the room and put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulled out of his grip. "You're being incredibly childish! Do you want your mother to spend her last moments thinking that you don't love her?"

"Maybe," said Rose. "Then she might finally understand how it was to spend my entire childhood thinking that she didn't love me."

Cal stared at her in disbelief, searching for some sign that she was only doing this for show, but her resolve was impenetrable. Did she honestly hate her mother?

"That's ridiculous," he said. "Of course she cares about you."

"Really?" She was glaring at Cal as though offended by his suggestion that her mother might love her. "I always thought that when we care about people, we want them to be happy."

"No one has ever wanted anything but the best for you—"

That was all it took.

Rose exploded.

"She tried to _sell me!_" she screamed, so loudly that Cal took a step back. "Like a goddamn whore! For her own _convenience!_"

"Rose—"

"She needed money, you had it, and I was all she had to give you in return. Why don't you understand? How can you be so blind? _She never cared about my happiness!_" She grabbed a vase of flowers and heaved it against the wall where it shattered. "She wasn't _protecting _me, she was _exploiting _me! And she had the nerve to call _me _selfish!"

Cal watched the raw display of pain and rage on her face.

And suddenly, somewhere, deep down inside him, something clicked.

"You don't have any idea! You don't know what it's like to go through your entire life without a single person who understands how you feel or cares about you unconditionally!"

"Rose."

"You don't understand what it's like to know you're never going to have the love or even respect of a person you so desperately want to be closer to!"

"_Rose._" He stepped forward, grabbed her, fully expecting her to struggle, but she didn't—she just continued to scream.

"_You don't understand what it's like to be trapped!_"

"_I do understand!_" he shouted, giving her a shake.

She was silent for a moment, breathless, frozen, her eyes full of rage and fear and grief. She looked like a caged animal.

And then she sagged against him and began to sob.

His arms went around her limply. He could feel her trembling and she seemed so frail, so _lifeless_, as if her life force were draining out of her with every tear she shed.

He wasn't sure how long they stood there, like that.

But she didn't pull away, and he didn't let go of her.

xXx

He led her down the hallway with one hand on her back. She didn't resist, even though he knew she didn't like it when he touched her, even though he knew that she knew where they were going.

There was no doubt in his mind that tomorrow everything would return to normal and that Rose would withdraw once more into her abyss.

He was prepared to live with that now, which was something he couldn't have said for himself a week ago.

The nurse stood in the doorway of Ruth's bedroom looking in. Her face was grave, set, like the face of a stone gargoyle.

Cal left Rose and went forward. "Is she—"

The nurse slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said.

He nodded and turned back to Rose.

"I guess we were a little late," she said.

The emptiness in her voice was something he would never forget.


	13. Chapter 13

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Thirteen**

As Rose watched the casket being lowered into its grave, it occurred to her for the first time that her mother was _gone_.

The idea made her feel strangely light, as though all of her insides had been scooped out and she were nothing more than a hollow shell of a person.

She wasn't in grieving.

But she didn't feel free either, as she'd imagined she would.

She didn't feel much of anything.

xXx

She stood next to Cal and zoned herself out as everyone lined up to shake her hand and offer their condolences. _Of course she cares about you, _Cal had said. _I understand, _he'd claimed.

What exactly did he think he understood? Was that an expression of pity and contempt—_you poor sick child, how sad it is that your perception of everything is so self absorbed_—or, God forbid, could something she said actually have gotten through to him?

They hadn't spoken in the three days since. Neither of them acknowledged what had happened. Rose couldn't quite wrap her mind around it.

But she was beginning to give up on the idea that she could ever hope to understand Cal, so that was nothing to be surprised about.

Still, sometimes she wondered.

xXx

"Do you ever wonder about things?"

Across from her in the train car, Cal glanced up from his newspaper. "Do I what?" he asked, as though he hadn't quite understood her meaning.

"I said do you ever wonder about things," Rose repeated after hesitating and then deciding she had nothing to lose if she forged ahead in this experiment. "You know… people, and situations, and things like that. Don't you ever look at a person and wonder what's really going on inside them?"

He studied at her for a moment. "Yes," he said finally. "I look at you and wonder every day."

She swallowed. She hadn't really anticipated that he would answer her; she had expected a snappish response about stupid questions.

"What do you wonder about me?"

The Cal she was accustomed to resurfaced in a flash. "I have no idea where you think you're going with this, Rose, but I'm not interested in following you there," he said, returning to his paper.

"Pardon me for trying to have an honest conversation with you. I suppose I'd best just shut up and stop thinking altogether."

He narrowed his eyes at her but said nothing.

"So," she said again, "what do you wonder about me?"

"I wonder why you always seem to want what you know you can't have while rejecting what's readily available," he said, sounding as though he were only giving her an answer so that she would be quiet and leave him alone.

"Are you talking about Jack?"

"No," he said in a deliberate voice. "I'm talking about you."

They stared at each other in silence.

"I wonder about you too, sometimes," she said at last.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yes," she said.

She didn't want to elaborate unless he asked her, showed some interest, tried to learn more for himself about her thoughts.

But he didn't ask.

So she owed him no explanation. And she left it at that.

xXx

Several nights later Rose lay awake in her own bed, staring up at shadows that played across the ceiling. She couldn't stop thinking back to her father's funeral and wondering why she still didn't quite grasp that her mother was dead.

His death hadn't filled her with emptiness. It had stirred something within her. She'd never had what could be considered a loving relationship with either of her parents, but her father had at least tried to think about her, and she would have ventured to say that she'd loved him.

_You get along so much better with Mother than you do with me, so why don't you just marry her and leave me out of all this?_ she had screamed at Cal once in a rare moment of revelation; she had always kept her feelings stuffed down and shoved aside because she knew that if she tried to express them people would look at her as if she were something from another planet and they would tell her how ungrateful, how selfish, how outright _stupid_ she was being, and the thought that people like that would respond in such a way to what was inside her made her feel naked and sick.

And of course Cal had given the typical reply. You're being stupid, snap out of it, I can't comprehend what's the matter with you sweetpea you have everything that anyone could ever dream of wanting.

Cal and her mother were always arm-in-arm, making idle chatter and laughing together like they were the best of friends.

Rose had thought it was because together they knew they were in good company. Both of them were textbook models of what they had tried to make her into, both of them thought they knew what was best for her, and for those reasons they were right at home with each other.

Each of them was bad enough on their own, but together they had made her positively ill. They complimented all the qualities in each other that Rose found repulsive and intensified them to the power of ten.

Sometimes she wasn't sure if Cal went along to impress her mother or whether they were truly kindred spirits.

Rose climbed out of bed and tiptoed down the dark, still hallway.

Cal always slept with his bedroom door shut.

She knew the hour was unreasonable. She pushed open the door anyway.

Cal was in bed, but he wasn't asleep. He was sitting up, in the dark, with a cigarette in one hand trailing smoke as his eyes focused on some point beyond reality. For once, he didn't look intimidating… he looked lost.

His head snapped in her direction. "What in God's name are you doing awake, Rose?" he demanded, obviously startled at her sudden appearance.

She took a few steps closer to the bed. "I… will you come for a walk with me?"

"_What?_"

"You know I enjoy the occasional midnight stroll. I thought I'd see if you might join me for one."

"Your suggestion is _beyond_ ridiculous—"

"You don't have to throw a fit. I just thought I'd ask." She backed up again. "I was hoping we could talk, but if you'd rather sit there and pretend you're resting then I won't bother you."

She slipped from his room and was halfway down the hallway when she heard him call her name.

"Rose. Wait."

He went to her, hurriedly tying his robe shut. "This is insane," he muttered.

… _That's why I trust it._

xXx

It was a mild late summer evening, not too humid or too still. They wandered together alongside the pond, neither of them speaking.

"Do you really think Mother cared for me?" Rose said at last.

His answer surprised her. "In her own way," he replied. "I don't—believe she understood the difference between what was best for her and what was best for you."

"You didn't either."

He gave her a quick, uncomfortable sideways glance. "I know," he said.

Rose was stunned.

"Rose, I've never made a pretense of understanding why you were always so discontent, and there were times when I didn't even care if you were happy just as long as you did what you were supposed to, but it never quite left the back of my mind."

"I tried to kill myself that night."

"I'm sorry?"

"On the Titanic," she said. "The night that Jack… saved me… I had planned to jump. But he talked me out of it and pulled me back over the rail when I slipped—"

"Why would you even think to do such a thing?" he said, looking stricken.

She took a deep breath. "I was trapped," she answered, "and I saw it as an escape."

He didn't respond.

They continued their walk.

"Didn't you realize that I loved you?"

She froze and looked over at him in the dark. Her pulse was racing.

"I've told you before… I had nothing to gain from our arrangement. You came with only baggage and debt. Did you honestly think that I didn't give a damn about you?"

"You wanted to own me," she said, her throat suddenly dry as cotton. "You were possessive, not affectionate. You tried to buy my submission."

"I tried to buy your respect. I—" His voice faltered. "I can see now that I was only driving you further away."

"You were," she said.

Her head spun.

Was Cal actually saying these things to her? Had something in his understanding of her finally shifted?

She took a step closer, tried to see into his eyes… and realized something about him.

He _couldn't_ fulfill her deepest needs and he would never be able to.

Even if he did care about her, even if he did try his best, even if he had drawn some new conclusions about her, he could never be consistent. He could never allow himself to be caught in the moment with her. He couldn't let go, have fun, be spontaneous or warm. He would never be able to pour his heart out to her the way she wanted him to.

He might have moments of vulnerability where he opened up to her the only way he knew how, but he could not bond with her like she needed to bond.

He couldn't be what she wanted. And she knew that he knew it.

They locked eyes in the dark, the acknowledgement unspoken.

"I'm getting a little chilly," said Rose finally, rubbing her arms through the sleeves of her nightgown. "We should… maybe we should both go back to bed."

"I can't imagine why I came out here with you in the first place," Cal replied as they started back toward the house.

Rose knew that a rare moment had ended and that she would never be able to get it back. It had slipped right through her fingers like silk, although there was nothing she could have done to hold on.

She would have to learn to cherish those moments.


	14. Chapter 14

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Fourteen**

Cal was burning up. His clothes were plastered against his skin. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face. Trying to ignore the white-hot shards of pain searing in his right temple he threw back the covers and groped for the whiskey bottle on his nightstand in the hopes that it might help to numb his agony.

He gulped from the bottle. Whiskey spilled, trailing down his chin, some of it sucked into his windpipe. Choking, he put the bottle back and slumped against the pillows. He shut his eyes and willed himself to stillness.

He wasn't conscious of anyone entering, but some time later he became aware of Edith, the head maid and nurse, wiping sweat from his forehead with a damp cloth and forcing a medicine cup to his mouth. The bitter, poisonous flavor of medicine washed over his tongue and he began to choke again. Edith smacked him on the back. She never seemed afraid to touch him or come too close, as all the other servants were.

He reached toward his nightstand for the whiskey bottle.

"Whiskey is not going to ease your symptoms, Mr. Hockley. A hangover will only intensify your head pains."

"No," he said, "it'll… help. An anesthetic…"

"Honestly, Mr. Hockley, if I am being perfectly up front as a trained nurse I must say your drinking habit is no doubt contributing to your frequent migraines."

How… fucking… dare… she. Insolent wench—

She removed the bottle from his nightstand and gently pushed him back down into a resting position. "What you need now is rest," she said, pulling the curtains closed to block out the angry sunlight.

He retreated into his darkness, where all he could see were Rose's beautiful eyes, sultry and piercing, gazing up at him frozen from inside _the sketch_.

They had been focused on him for that brief moment, and they always were when he pictured it in his mind, but none of that mattered… because the immortalized Rose would never be focusing her eyes on anyone but Jack Dawson no matter who else happened to stare at her, at the soft curves of her body that were perfection, the seductive look on her lovely face.

Had she looked at him that way when they made love? No doubt he had felt her trembling against him, heard her whimper in pleasure…

Was it worth your life, Dawson?

I hope you enjoyed yourself.

xXx

"You look in good health, my dear."

Sitting beside her at the dinner table, Cal noted Rose's insincere smile. She did indeed look in good health; she had been haggard and gray when she first returned to Pittsburgh, but she'd since put on weight and re-acclimated herself to the necessity of careful grooming. Her auburn hair regained its luster. Her complexion glowed. Cal suspected that this improvement was deliberate. If she hadn't been so hell bent on nurturing the seed of Dawson then he was certain she would have stopped eating some time ago and allowed herself to waste away.

The woman speaking to Rose—a wife of one of Cal's business associates, he had forgotten her name—smiled with much more force than Rose had and chattered on. "How have you been managing your condition? You must be due in March or a little later, correct? You're already beginning to show a bit, dear, aren't you? Best watch yourself, you wouldn't want to gain too much weight too early on."

Rose shot Cal a quick glance and said, "About March, yes."

If she actually did deliver early he would curse her. Damn if it was beyond her control, but no one would believe that she'd conceived after their wedding if she gave birth five months earlier than she was supposed to.

"I was so stricken to hear about your mother's illness, dear. You poor thing, you've experienced so much loss at such a young age already. You have my sympathy."

"Thank you," said Rose, and she unfolded her fan and began fanning herself as though she were suddenly overheating. Cal saw something stir in her eyes.

"And I could scarcely believe it when I saw the headlines about the Titanic! To think you never made it into a lifeboat! Why were you all by yourself?"

"There was such a panic, keeping track of your own became almost impossible," Cal answered for Rose, noticing that she had averted her eyes. "But this is a rather dismal topic of conversation—I'm certain we could find something more appropriate to discuss—"

"Of course! Of course we could! Mr. Hockley, last month—I was shocked to hear! Company finances! Some business my husband mentioned about your stockholders! You've taken care of that, I imagine?"

"Naturally."

"Pardon me," said Rose, pushing back her chair and rising to leave. Her head was down as she crossed the banquet hall and vanished outside into the courtyard.

Cal stared after her.

"Is she feeling quite well?" the woman queried, more curious than concerned.

"Probably just a little overheated. You'll have to excuse her."

"Of course! But as I was saying—"

Cal smiled and got up, gesturing for her to hold the thought, before he went after Rose.

In the dim candlelit courtyard she sat on a bench among the dying flowers, her face buried in her hands. When she heard him say her name she bolted upright and turned her face away in an attempt to hide the fact that she had been crying, but it was all too obvious.

"What is it now, Rose?" Cal asked, a little impatiently.

She wiped tears from her eyes. "Nothing," she said in a shaky voice. "I just needed some fresh air."

He sat on the bench next to her and stared out at the garden in the falling dusk. Summer's last bloom was fading and drying out; the end of a lifecycle and, in some odd way, it felt like the end of an era as well.

"That was very childish, running off from the table," he said after a minute.

Rose wiped at her eyes again. "I just hate this," she whispered. "All of it… I hate it…"

Cal's first impulse was to tell her that she ought to stop complaining, but he didn't. "That doesn't mean anything," he said. "There's a certain standard by which you have to conduct yourself in public, regardless of how happy or unhappy you are."

"But that ridiculous Franklin woman wouldn't shut up…"

"She was only making polite conversation."

"She was being tactless."

"If you won't engage anyone you can't expect them to do anything except ask questions."

Rose looked up. "It was still tactless! Telling me I've gained too much weight, going on and on about how sorry she feels for me…"

Her eyes filled with tears again and she raised a hand to her mouth to muffle a sob.

"Come now, Rose, don't you think you're being a bit dramatic—"

"I want my baby to know its father," she interrupted in a whisper.

She was looking at him now—her stare was the vision that haunted him—and this time her eyes were focused _on_ him and not on Jack but there was nothing lustful or loving or grateful in the way they shone with tears…

"I just can't stop thinking about how things would have been… how they were supposed to be. Not like this, Cal. We were supposed to travel to Santa Monica together, I was supposed to be an actress—"

God, she was naïve.

A love-swept little girl who had been shielded from the harsh realities of life and couldn't cope now that they'd finally caught up to her.

He was almost sorry for her.

Almost.

She shook with sobs. "He would have made such an amazing father. He was so full of life and love. The room would just light up when he walked in. You saw it yourself… he was… such a sweet, _genuine_ person, the most genuine I've ever met…"

Did she really think that he wanted to hear about this? Had she forgotten altogether that Jack Dawson was a subject he cared about bitterly, or did she just not mind that she was spitting in his face with every word she spoke?

"You know," she said, sniffling, "I think I knew the moment I saw him that he would be the father of my children. When we… when we made love and held each other after, I felt this rush… like a premonition…"

"Don't censor yourself on my account, dear," said Cal.

She blinked the tears from her eyes and stared up at him for a long minute in silence. And then, as though she had been in a trance, as though she had suddenly come to her senses, she sucked in a sharp breath.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have known better than to think I could confide in you, that you'd understand."

She stood; he followed her and grabbed her roughly. "I understand why you did what you did," he said, "but I do _not _understand why you find it either sensitive or appropriate to tell me in explicit detail about the spiritual revelation you underwent after you allowed yourself to be desecrated."

The look on her face was stunned.

He let go of her and gave her a bit of a shove away from him. "Go clean yourself up, Rose," he said, seeing streaks of makeup that her tears had trailed down her cheeks. "You're a wreck."

He turned and went back inside before she could say anything.


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the play quoted in this chapter either.

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Fifteen**

Rose had always spent her birthdays standing at the center of a crowded ballroom, decked out in some ridiculous contraption of a party gown, forcing herself to smile while everyone admired her for the doll that she was.

Now, in early September, her eighteenth birthday was drawing closer. And without her mother around to plan a celebration, she began to imagine that Cal would simply forgo any festivities at all. Last year her birthday had fallen six or seven months into their courtship, and although Cal had felt obligated to foot the party bill and make an appearance, he hadn't been particularly warm or personal about any of it—he'd seemed to view it as something of a business deal that would help him secure her hand just a few short weeks later.

Rose's birthday always made her feel lonely.

Skipping over it would at least be preferable to the mindless attention it had brought her in the past.

xXx

"Isn't your birthday coming up sometime this month?"

"The twelfth," Rose replied. Her breakfast stood untouched on the table in front of her. Neither she nor Cal had said a word to each other thus far, and she'd spent the past twenty minutes gazing out the window as the morning sun climbed over the property. "I'd rather not have a party."

Per usual, Cal was lost in the morning paper checking the day's stock quotas. "Then how do you plan to celebrate?" he asked, not looking up.

"I hadn't planned to, actually."

"You don't want to celebrate your own birthday?"

"Not if it means another banquet or cotillion."

The conversation seemed to be over and she assumed that he'd accepted her apathy.

"Was there some other way you thought you'd prefer to spend it?" Cal asked. He looked at her over the rim of his reading glasses.

The question took Rose by surprise. "I don't know," she said. "I didn't think there were options."

"Well do share if you come up with something. I can't read minds."

Was that an offer?

"I'd like to go to the theater," said Rose decisively after another pause. "For my birthday. I would enjoy that."

"Alright then," Cal said. "We'll go to the theater."

"There's a particular play I want to see. The production just opened last month. It's called _Spring Awakening._"

Rose hadn't imagined that Cal, who had no particular interest in the arts, would have heard of the play, but she realized she was wrong when he responded to her comment with disgust.

"I'm trying to consider you, Rose, but I am _not_ going to pay good money to sit through something so tastelessly vulgar and pornographic."

"It isn't!" Rose said, angry that he couldn't relinquish his need to control even when he was doing something nice for her. "It's a coming of age story!"

"It's smut. It was banned in Germany."

"Well I would _like _it if you took me to see it on my birthday, but if the idea horrifies you so much then let's just forget the whole thing."

She got up and left the room in a calculated huff.

xXx

The auditorium was a dark wash of warm voices, heavy and vivid, the height of intellectual opulence. Sitting in the front row of the center balcony next to Cal, Rose took it all in and smiled triumphantly to herself.

"—dreamed about his _mother!_"

"Did he tell you that?"

"If you knew what I've gone through since that night!"

She sensed more than saw Cal cringing next to her as the play unfolded. She knew that Cal wasn't a prude—he had pressured her to sleep with him from the moment they were engaged when society looked down upon any form of premarital sex, and she was absolutely positive that he had more than a little experience in that department—but she had an idea that he saw sex as something to be practiced without acknowledgment. _Spring Awakening_ was a play about adolescent sexuality; Rose had read the translated version and it contained depictions of rape, incest, masturbation, teenage pregnancy and abortion. To Cal these were things to be privately aware of, not expressed in a public display.

At intermission Rose excused herself to the powder room and splashed water on her face. She felt very warm and she could hardly breathe stuffed into her corset; it was getting more difficult to conceal her changing body, and Elizabeth seemed to lace her up tighter every day.

xXx

"What did you think?" asked Rose as they left the theater some time later. "Now that you've seen it for yourself, not just read about it?"

"It was uncultured and vile. Do you actually enjoy that sort of filth?"

Rose tried to breathe deeply. "I enjoy exposing myself to the ways other people think and imagine things, even if they're controversial," she said. She reached out and touched Cal on the shoulder when he stepped toward the car. "Could we just walk for a bit? I feel lightheaded."

Cal shot her a glance, almost as though he didn't believe her, but he said, "Of course."

They strolled along the sidewalk together. Skyscrapers shot up to the stars, glowing orange in a mist of city lights. In spite of her physical discomfort Rose felt at peace, resigned to being in the moment.

"Thank you for taking me out tonight," she said. "I know you didn't want to see that play."

"You're welcome," said Cal, narrowing his eyes at her. He probably thought she was being congenial because she wanted some other favor from him and that she was working up to the request.

But she wasn't. "Actually, Cal… I really do appreciate everything. I've felt a little better lately."

What she _wanted _to say was that she valued the effort he seemed to be making to think about how she felt, but she didn't know how to put it. She didn't want him to take it for more than it was, to interpret it as a license to demand more from her than she was ready to give.

"I would hope so," said Cal. "Dr. Heinrich is a much better physician than that other man you were seeing early in the summer."

"I don't mean like that. I meant—"

She stopped. What did she mean? She still felt alienated and empty; she still longed to relate and connect with someone; regret continued to eat away at her and thoughts of what might have been in some other lifetime plagued her dreams.

But somehow, in the month since her mother's death, something had shifted. Some of the sharp pain had dulled, though there was a constant ache inside her that wouldn't subside.

He was studying her closely. "What?"

"Nothing." She stepped into a darkened alley and motioned for him to follow her.

"Where are you going, Rose?"

"It's a shortcut," she said. "There's a fountain on the other side. It's beautiful, all lit up at night."

When he still hesitated, she took his arm and led him along. He didn't resist.

The alley opened onto a plaza where the fountain had been built. Cascades of water burst into the air, illuminated by the shimmer of streetlights.

Rose perched on the stone fountain ledge and gazed into the water. Coins that people had tossed in reflected out.

"Do you have a coin?" she asked Cal.

He dug in his wallet for a nickel and dropped it into her outstretched hand as he sat down next to her. "We should get back," he said, checking his watch. "It's past midnight and I have to be at the north side mill by seven tomorrow."

"Let's sit here a moment. It's such a nice night and this is one of my favorite spots." She flipped the nickel several times. "I don't know what to wish for," she said.

"What's that?"

"You know… you're supposed to toss a coin into the fountain and make a wish."

She thought a moment, staring up at the starry sky, then stood and flipped the coin into the water.

"What did you wish for?" asked Cal, looking like he found the whole thing rather pointless.

A cool breeze whisked across the plaza, and Rose shivered. "I can't say," she said. "Otherwise my wish won't come true."

He arched an eyebrow. "Knowing you, I doubt it will anyway."

The comment was an unexpectedly painful jab at her sensitivity. She stared at the fountain, her sense of peace retreating.

Cal checked his watch again and got up. "Come on, Rose."

She didn't move.

"Rose?"

She looked over at him. She knew he was confused and impatient, worrying ahead to tomorrow's work day rather than trying to relax and enjoy her company.

Had she expected something else?

She couldn't explain the sense of crushing disappointment that washed over her as she followed him back to the car. Not even to herself.


	16. Chapter 16

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Sixteen**

Cal didn't often visit his father, and his father didn't often visit him. Over the years their relationship had evolved from student and teacher to business associates; there was no real warmth between them, but they had a certain appreciation of each other as businessmen first and foremost, family second. This had been particularly true after the untimely death of Cal's mother while he was studying at Harvard ten years earlier.

So he was rather surprised when he heard the doorbell ring downstairs one morning and a servant came to inform him that his father was in the sitting room.

The two men shook hands and Nathan flashed his brightest smile. It was a businessman's smile, one that Cal had inherited and learned to utilize after years of observing it on his father.

"It's been too long, son! How is life treating you?"

"I can hardly complain," said Cal, although it was a far cry from the truth.

A servant entered and set a tea tray on the coffee table between them.

"So what brings you here?" Cal asked, mirroring the fake smile. "I'm sure you didn't decide to stop by just for the hell of it."

"Come now, Caledon! No questions asked! What father needs an excuse to pay a visit to his own lifeblood?"

Cal smiled again, but something in the tone of Nathan's voice made him uncomfortable.

"And how is your beautiful young Rose? In good health, I hope?"

"She's in the best health that money can buy," said Cal.

"How terrible about her mother. And only a year or two after losing her father."

"Yes," said Cal, "it's tragic."

"I must be upfront," said Nathan. "There is indeed a reason I decided to pay you this impromptu visit. I've been meaning to come see you for a while now but haven't had the time."

He glanced to the door, as though he were checking to make sure that no one was there, and then pulled a letter from his jacket pocket.

"What's that?" asked Cal, his discomfort heightening as Nathan held it out to him.

"A letter from Rose's dear mother, Ruth. You see, she wrote me shortly after she fell ill."

Cal scanned the letter.

"I didn't want to believe it at first," said Nathan, "but I can think of no reason for Ruth to tell me such falsehoods."

Expressionless, Cal handed the letter back.

"Well?" said Nathan, watching him expectantly.

"Rose had an affair with a boy from steerage on board the Titanic," Cal said after a pause. "I've never touched her."

"It's true then," Nathan replied in a hushed voice. He looked pained.

Cal said nothing.

And then—

"Why did you not prevent this, Caledon? Why did you not control her?"

"Why did I not prevent it?" Cal repeated. He laughed. It was a hysterical sound. "There is _nothing _I could possibly have done to control her that I didn't try and fail. She was in rebellion and she had become unmanageable."

"If she didn't fear or respect you enough to stay faithful then you were never clear about your roles to begin with!" Nathan said, standing. Cal remembered times in his childhood when Nathan had towered over him, in a fury over some trivial thing—he had been out climbing trees with the maid's son again, he'd cried like a _sniveling little girl_ after he fell off his bicycle and scraped an elbow, and Caledon someday you're going to be powerful and rich beyond meaning but _no one will respect you_ if you don't learn to _act like you deserve their respect_.

Thank you, Father, lesson learned.

"She didn't honor you because you never required her to honor you. We've all been aware of that girl's insubordinate streak since the beginning, have we not? A woman like that must be put firmly in her place and made to realize that she can't run around doing whatever she pleases and expect to be rewarded."

Refusing to be condescended to, Cal got up to meet him."I made all of those things abundantly clear to Rose," he snapped. "The harder I tried to restrain her the further she strayed."

"This is unacceptable! Your _wife_ is carrying a bastard child fathered by a proletariat!"

"And what would you like me to do about it?" Cal demanded.

"Eliminate the problem," said Nathan after he seemed to pause and consider for a moment.

Cal knew exactly what he was insinuating. "That's impossible," he said. "She's five months along. The risk it would pose her is too high, even if we were to find someone who could perform the procedure."

"You ought to have taken her to see someone as soon as she told you!"

Cal struggled to come up with words to express what had gone on in his thought process, words that Nathan would understand. He didn't fully understand himself what had happened to him psychologically; he only remembered having thought of everything all at once and ruling out options for one reason after another until he was left with a matter of yes or no. He would take her as she was, or he would turn her out to fend for herself.

"It wasn't as simple as that."

"However can you see this as a complicated matter? It's _quite_ simple. If it were myself I wouldn't have taken her back in at all. Do you realize the damage this could do the company if it gets out? We'll be caught up in a scandal. It will ruin us to the media."

"I had realized this. When I spoke to Ruth it was in discretion. But she couldn't keep it to herself, exhibitionist whore that she was—"

Nathan smacked him across the face.

"I did not raise my only son and heir to use such language toward an honorable woman like Ruth Dewitt Bukater," he said in a calm voice. "You corrupt her memory."

_Don't you see her?_ Rose had shrieked, trying desperately to make him understand the things she knew about her mother.

What had Ruth believed she was doing? Was she cleansing a guilty conscience, or did she have some other reason for thinking that she needed to share potentially damaging information?

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Nathan asked in that same calm, cool voice.

"Nothing," said Cal. "I won't apologize for the truth."

The epiphany made him hollow.

xXx

Cal lay fully dressed on top of his bed, listening to evening rain hammer against the roof and windows. His father had taken Ruth's letter back with him, but he could remember most of the wording.

_I cannot rest knowing that you will never hear the truth about your supposed grandchild,_ she had written.

Fumbling on the nightstand for his cigarettes, Cal tried to quell the dread that kept rising in him. Unless Ruth had confided in other, less trustworthy souls—and he doubted she had, because her reason for informing Nathan did make sense on some level—there was nothing that could come of it. The true origin of Rose's child would remain a skeleton in the family closet that never saw the light of day.

A knock at the door made him sit up.

"Yes?"

It was Rose. "Are you going to sleep already?" she asked, narrowing her eyes when she saw him on the bed.

"It's seven-thirty," replied Cal in lieu of an answer.

She hesitated and then sat down at the foot of the bed, careful to keep appropriate distance between them. She was in her dressing gown, had her arms sort of crossed over her body, but the swell of her abdomen had become noticeable and it occurred to him not for the first time that he was going to raise an heir whose life and essence he despised.

"I want you to have this back," she said, holding out her clenched hand. She didn't meet his eyes. "I wish you would sell it so I never have to see it again."

She opened her hand and the Heart of the Ocean fell out onto the duvet.

Cal snatched at it.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm giving it back?" said Rose.

"No," Cal replied. "It was never yours to _give back_, only mine to have returned."

"You gave it to me," she said, defiance flashing in her eyes. "It _was_ mine."

"You lost your rights to anything I'd given you when you ran off with Dawson," Cal said as he stuffed the diamond into his shirt pocket.

"I had _wanted_ to explain something to you," Rose said angrily, "but if you're going to be like this then I won't even bother."

Cal sighed. "Stop."

She looked at him.

"What did you want to explain?"

"That I'm asking you to sell it because there are too many painful memories attached to it for me. And for you, I'm sure." She paused. "I… would like to move on from them but I see that necklace lying in my vanity every morning and it reminds me of things I'm trying to forget."

"Forget?" he repeated. "Forget Dawson? Your savior?"

That sent her storming from the room.

Cal knew that he had just destroyed an opportunity. Rather than listen to her and try to understand, he had driven her deliberately away. But her words had jarred him and he stopped caring.

What precisely did she want to move on from? Had she at last realized that she would never be able to heal and go on to live her life if she didn't break out of her dreams about Dawson? Or did she want to forget that her relationship with Cal had ever been one of anything more than cooperation and attempted mutual understanding?

He pulled the diamond from his pocket. It glittered cruelly in the lamplight.

It was either a second chance, or a condemnation.

He was too proud to go after her and find out which.


	17. Chapter 17

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Seventeen**

The opening of a new mill was usually a celebratory occasion, during which Cal and his father would stroll through and meet the hired foremen, watch the machinery being tested and then retire together to toast the expansion of business.

This one, though, Cal couldn't wait to be done with.

He hadn't spoken to his father since their argument and hadn't particularly wanted to. Construction of the mill had been underway all summer long, and Cal had known when it was scheduled to open, in October. They coordinated a time to meet at the mill for its inspection. And that was all.

Rose asked if she could come along and watch the inspection.

"What are you talking about?" said Cal, completely at a loss for how she could suddenly find interest in such a thing. In the time they'd known each other, Hockley Steel had opened several other mills and any time Cal spoke at length about business Rose had shown nothing but extreme indifference.

"I want to see where you go every day," she replied. "Can't I do that? Aren't I entitled?"

Her sudden interest seemed flippant.

At least she had stopped hiding away in her bedroom.

Nathan greeted them at the mill and embraced Cal as though they had never exchanged a harsh word. While they walked through and oversaw the inspector, Nathan chattered on mindlessly, updating Cal on the latest activities of everyone they knew.

"Louisa and I had dinner with the Hendersons last week," he said; Louisa was Nathan's second wife, and the two of them entertained many more guests than Cal had remembered having around when his mother was alive. "Certainly you remember the Hendersons—it had been ages since I'd seen them, they've been living abroad in Europe for the last ten months. Their daughter Alice was married just a few weeks ago. Rose, aren't you acquainted with Alice?"

"We were aware of each other at one point," Rose replied, unsuccessfully hiding her distaste. Alice Henderson was several years older than Rose; Cal knew that they'd gone to finishing school together and that Ruth believed Alice would be a good influence on her daughter and so had tried to bring them together. The friendship never seemed to stick.

"She's an exceptional young woman. So very charming and pure. The respect and devotion she seems to have for her husband is astounding."

Cal didn't miss the way his gaze lingered on Rose as he spoke.

Rose didn't either, and the moment Nathan turned his back she glared not at him but at Cal.

Why? she seemed to question, angry but resigned.

Cal ignored her attempt to guilt him.

"The two of you ought to rekindle your friendship," said Nathan breezily, his attention on the machinery now rather than on Rose. "It might prove beneficial…"

Rose looked at Nathan with glazed eyes. "To whom would it prove beneficial?" she asked.

Cal knew that she was on the verge of making a scene and it was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. "Give me that," he said to the inspector, reaching for his clipboard of notes. In an attempt to distract himself and interrupt the flow of conversation he looked around critically and began complaining to the inspector that the millworkers seemed inefficient and ignorant of the proper safety precautions. The inspector seemed annoyed, as though he suspected that Cal had cast around deliberately for something to criticize.

"With all due respect, sir, every worker here has been required to undergo the appropriate training."

Being spoken back to put Cal in an even worse mood than he already was. At times taking a stroll through one of the mills had given him a sense of inner peace; he was mighty and untouchable, a king observing his kingdom, and his subjects dare not slip up in his presence for even a moment. He'd taken comfort in watching the order and progress as it unfolded in front of him and had enjoyed catching mistakes so that he could exercise his authority.

But now it struck him as suddenly senseless, irrelevant—even inane. What was power, anyway? Business was nothing but a convoluted hierarchy, a web cleverly woven of fear and pressure and partisanship. And there was no solace to be taken from prestige, because no matter how insured you thought you were you could never rise above the influence of the masses. Sometimes it seemed to Cal that the payoff wasn't worth even a fraction of the time and money and effort he had put into safeguarding himself.

But that was an idea that he refused to follow to its logical conclusion.

He had always understood clearly that he couldn't influence the direction of society; he could only work with it and around it, using conceit and impugnment to pervert everything to his own advantage. In a world that was both savage and bureaucratic, manipulation was the only card he had to play.

xXx

Toward the end of the tour Cal suggested to Rose that she run along outside to the car.

"I'll only be a minute," he said. "We just have some paperwork to fill out."

She left, and Cal and Nathan stood waiting for the inspector to bring the papers.

"Can't resist, can you?" Cal said in a conversational tone, watching ore shoot into a nearby furnace.

Nathan smiled. "I'm sorry?"

"Rose. Stop provoking her."

"Now now, certainly you don't think I meant any disparagement to dear Rose when I mentioned the Hendersons. I was simply making conversation."

"Spare me, Nathan."

Nathan flinched slightly at Cal's use of his first name. Cal hadn't called his father 'Father' since he was a young teenager, but Nathan still seemed startled any time Cal addressed him as an equal.

"We've already had it out. There's no point in continuing."

Nathan's smile came unhinged. "You take for granted that you're the only one in a spot," he said, scowling. "You may be keeping all of this together for the time being, but as proprietor of our company all eyes are on you and that's something which makes me increasingly ill at ease."

"That doesn't mean anything. I'm taking all the damage. All you have to do is sit back and watch me self-destruct."

"Wherever did you come across a notion as ignorant as that?" Nathan demanded, discomposure creeping into his voice. "You've put the good name and financial security of this family at risk."

"I couldn't be less concerned about money right now," said Cal, although it wasn't entirely true. "I consider myself insured."

"How so?"

"Walter Sullivan. He'll pull strings on Wall Street for me if I tell him to."

Nathan blinked. "How can you be certain that he's an ally?" he asked. Cal knew that his father and Sullivan went back together some years as business associates, although he'd never sensed much about the nature of their partnership—whether it was hostile or amicable or competitive. Now, Nathan's comment—which indicated obvious mistrust—made Cal's resolve flicker in a moment of doubt, but he shoved it aside.

"I won't expound, but I've taken precautions that should allow you to sleep peacefully at night," he said, still intentionally vague.

"I can't sleep peacefully when I'm left in the dark," said Nathan.

"Ignorance," replied Cal, "is bliss."

"I beg to differ."

"In either case it hardly concerns you."

"Oh-ho, I'll say it doesn't!" Nathan said with a sudden burst of anger. "Your virgin wife is going to birth me and illegitimate first grandchild, but certainly that's no business of mine. How meddlesome of me. My deepest apologies."

Your first and only, thought Cal caustically.

"Pardon me, gentlemen. The paperwork."

Disturbed, Cal glanced at the inspector. How long had he been there? Had he heard Nathan's last comment?

If he had, he gave no indication. He just thrust the paperwork at them and stood there whistling while Cal looked it over and signed the mill officially into business.

xXx

Nathan and his wife Louisa stayed for dinner that night. As they all settled in the dining room Cal felt the beginning of what he knew would evolve into a gut-churning headache, but he forced himself to stay focused—to keep the conversation diverted away from sensitive subject matter. Rose seemed to have nothing to contribute and her silence kept earning her glances from both Nathan and Louisa.

"Nathan tells me business has picked up a bit," said Louisa as she spread her napkin over her skirt.

Shards of angry red sunlight slanted through a crack in the drapery. Cal looked at Louisa and felt completely detached, as though he were at the door of someone else's dining room watching the people inside interact from a distance.

"It has," he answered in a dull voice, uninterested in providing any further comment that would draw out the discussion.

"It's been difficult, lately," she persisted gently, "hasn't it?"

"I can't predict every downtrend," Cal replied. "These things run in cycles."

"Some damage is too heavy to recover from," said Nathan.

"Defeatist mentality," Rose interjected, her first comment in some time. The words sounded hollow.

Nathan aimed an off-kilter smile in her general direction. "Defeat is quite a selfish feeling, dear Rose," he said. "To allow oneself to fall into the depths of despair over circumstances which may not perfectly mirror one's ignorant fantasies. Such a mindset can be dangerous. It can lead to lapses in judgment... to impulse." He sipped his chardonnay. "Every successful businessman understands how perilous it is to act on impulse."

"Thank you, Mr. Hockley, for the insightful lesson," said Rose. "Cal, did you get all that? Should you be taking notes?"

"Rose," Cal said, knowing that she would take it for the warning it was meant to be.

"What's that, Cal?" Rose said, almost daring him to try and rein her in. Nathan and Louisa both looked slightly appalled by Rose's outburst and Cal wished that they hadn't stayed for dinner.

But he smiled and raised his glass. "Let's move along, shall we?"

"Let's," Nathan agreed, also raising his glass. "To recovery."

"To recovery," Louisa repeated.

Rather than join in the toast, Rose stood up. "If you'll excuse me," she said. "I'm not feeling well."

She vanished.

A maid appeared in the doorway. "Dinner will be in shortly," she said. She took in the room, probably noticing Rose's absence. "Where is—"

"Thank you, Margaret," said Cal, pinching the bridge of his nose. The maid accepted that as her dismissal and left; Cal got up to go after Rose. "Go ahead," he told Nathan and Louisa, "I'll join you in a moment."

"Perhaps we should—" Nathan began, also rising. Cal neither cared nor wanted to know what Nathan had to say. He gestured for Nathan and Louisa to stay put as he retreated up the grand staircase.

Rose sat on the edge of her canopy bed, scribbling furiously on a sheet of watermarked stationery. She turned the page over so that Cal couldn't see whatever she had written.

"What are you doing, Rose?" Cal asked, trying to hide his exasperation.

"I'm writing a letter," she replied.

"To whom?"

"Does it make any difference?"

Cal knew what was supposed to happen next. He would reprove her immaturity, she would retaliate in anger over his attempts to _control her_, he would try to force her to come back down to dinner, she would refuse. He would fight the urge to strike her and her resentment of him would cause him to become almost physically ill.

He stared at her, at her empty face, her defeated posture, and in an instant he could see that she was wearing thin.

The thing he felt then was transient and foreign, a strange flutter of empathy that began to subside almost as soon as it appeared.

But he did understand what she was feeling.

"Is there anything I can say that will make you come back downstairs and pretend?" he asked, uncharacteristically blunt.

"I'm tired, Cal," Rose snapped. Her hand smacked against the stationery pad and closed into a fist, crumpling her letter. "I'm half _dead_ from exhaustion."

Cal knew that she wanted him to leave her to her meditations.

Instead he flipped the chair at her desk and sat down to face her. "What's going through your mind right this moment?" he asked.

She gave him an odd look. "Pardon me?"

"Don't think about it. Just seize onto the first thing you feel."

"Cal—"

"I'm trying to understand."

He saw surprise and a hint of doubt in her eyes, as though she wasn't quite sure about his motives.

"I wish that I could be anywhere," she said. "Except here."

"Where would you like to be?"

"California," she said in an instant. "Santa Monica."

Cal forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. "And what would you do there?" he asked.

Rose shut her eyes. "I would stand on a pier," she said, "and lean out a bit over the water, and I'd breathe in the clean air and gaze up at an endless blue sky and sigh in contentment because I'm alive, I'm free—"

Cal studied her face, waiting for her to finish.

"—and then I would snort back a mouthful of spit and aim for the coast of Asia."

If he'd been drinking something just then Cal was certain he would have choked on it.

Rose's eyes opened. "To put it delicately," she said, "I would _live_."

In response to the awkward silence that followed, she added, "You wanted to know." Her tone was almost apologetic.

"Fair enough," said Cal.

Rose gazed down at the paper in her hand. "I just want an escape," she said. "I want to fall asleep forever and dream."

"I understand that," said Cal.

She looked at him. "Do you?"

"Yes," he replied, entirely honest.

She seemed unsure then, like she couldn't draw conclusions about anything even though she might have wanted to. Cal decided to leave the conversation there, and he stood.

"Is there anything you'd like me to have sent up?" he asked.

She shook her head.

He left her alone and returned to the dining room where Nathan and Louisa sat waiting. He heard their voices from outside and they both fell silent as soon as he appeared at the doorway.

"I suppose you'll have to entertain us by yourself tonight then, Caledon," said Nathan, clearing his throat.

"Nathan," said Cal flatly, "shut up."

Nathan looked taken aback.

"I have nothing to say to either of you. I recommend that you see yourselves out now before the evening can deteriorate any further."

Nathan pushed back his chair, his hands gripping the edge of the table, but he didn't stand. The expression of disappointment—of _disgust_—on his face made Cal feel vaguely nauseated.

"If you insist on making every bad decision in the book and putting my good name at risk for the sake of your own perplexing whims," said Nathan, "then I suppose there's nothing I can do to stop you."

"I suppose there isn't," Cal deadpanned.

Nathan and Louisa called to one of the maids to bring their coats. Louisa hesitated, nervous over all the negative tension.

"Come along, Louisa," said Nathan loudly, not looking at Cal as he swept out of the dining room.

"I'm coming, dear," she called over her shoulder, then turned her attention to Cal. "You have to understand," she whispered, wringing her hands. "We all just hope for the best. We're concerned for you and for Rose."

"I appreciate the sentiment," said Cal, and he sounded dead to himself.

"You can't hide this sort of discontent from the world no matter how hard you may try. I don't claim to know everything, but I know what Nathan has told me and I've heard all the same rumors you have... please, Caledon, just be careful. For your father's sake. Promise me you will."

"Louisa!" Nathan shouted from the front foyer.

"Will you promise?" she asked as she moved toward the door.

"I'll manage," said Cal.

Alone in the dining room Cal poured himself more chardonnay. The pain in his head had swelled to an almost blinding level. He knew with complete certainty that the remaining threads of his sanity had snapped and that his mind was lost now, beyond reach within some vacuous purgatory that existed in him.

Margaret entered the room. "Mr. Hockley, do you still want dinner sent in?"

"To hell with dinner," said Cal. "Sit down and join me for a drink."

"Sir—?"

"Do what you're told."

Margaret sat. Cal noticed her hand tremble slightly as she reached for her glass. She was afraid of him, of course. All the servants were. He had made sure of that.

Cal ignored her discomfort. The rims of their classes clinked together, unnaturally loud in the empty room.

"I always win," he said, more to himself than to the maid. "One way or another."

_You're a good liar._


	18. Chapter 18

**[Unedited]**

**Chapter Eighteen**

Rose didn't remember falling asleep.

She opened her eyes, and the shadows in the room had changed. Orange autumn sunset light streamed through the window.

Her head pounding, she got up and drew the curtains, shutting out the light.

She had been dreaming. She couldn't remember what had happened in her dream, but something about it had left her heart fluttering around in her chest like the wing of a broken kite.

She didn't want to look at the sunset. Her dream had been filled with the light of the setting sun. Inexplicable sadness rushed through her as she tried to recall its significance and she decided that she didn't want to remember.

Suddenly cold, shivering, Rose pulled a shawl around herself and stepped into the shadowy hallway. Cal had left several days earlier on a week-long business trip to Chicago and she hadn't been sad to see him go. She knew he was still having problems with the status and security of his family's business and lately he had been more irritable than usual; when she'd asked about he it had brushed her off, almost laughed at her for wanting to know, and she found she didn't have the energy or even the interest to press further.

But now his absence seemed pervasive and odd. She had grown accustomed to having him as her only company, and with all the servants out of sight she felt as though she were the only person around for miles.

_Any other man in his right mind would have left you to die in the streets, you little slut._

_Didn't you realize that I loved you?_

She hesitated at the door of Cal's study, then slipped inside and shut the door behind her.

His dark, heavy wooden desk stood in the corner, bathed in shadows, like some hulking beast ready to pounce the moment she drew close enough.

She sat down and pulled at the top drawer, expecting it to be locked. To her surprise it slid open.

Files, lists of money sums and investors' names, business papers and contracts, all carefully marked and labeled alphabetically in Cal's spiked handwriting. A sinister-looking form postmarked from the end of May that began _Valued Patron, Due to the lack of stable revenue generated on behalf of your investment, we regret to inform you that your firm will be delisted by the Philadelphia Stock Exchange within ninety (90) days. However, if your firm is able to return its revenue to acceptable levels within the allotted time, we will happily void this notice and continue to value your participation. _

Rose looked in several other drawers and found the same in all of them. She didn't quite know what she was searching for or what she had imagined she would find. Something more than files. Something that might offer her more insight than what Cal himself was willing to give.

Footsteps in the hall made her freeze and slam the drawer shut. She looked to the door, waiting for Cal to come storming in home early from his trip.

But the door remained shut and the footsteps faded away.

Just a servant.

Rose exhaled the breath she had been holding and got up to leave. A very narrow drawer, for storing pens and ink bottles, caught her eye. The force of slamming the file drawer shut had caused it to slide open several centimeters. A sliver of deep violet showed through the opening.

She reached for the drawer.

The violet object was a silken scarf. Rose recognized it as her own; she had worn it often when she'd gone out with Cal or her mother, and it had once been one of her favorites, although by now she had forgotten all about it.

She moved the scarf aside and withdrew several other items. There was a bundle of letters, a postcard that Rose remembered having sent home to herself while they were in Paris, and a photograph. It showed her standing beside Cal in front of the Kingsway Hall Hotel where they had stayed in London; although both of them were smiling in the photograph, neither of them looked happy.

Rose turned over the bunch of letters and recognized her mother's handwriting.

She undid the string that held them together and sifted through them. They had all been exchanged between Cal and her mother. All of them were postmarked April and May of that year.

She opened one and unfolded the papers inside.

It was addressed to Cal, written by her mother. The date at the top was April 21st. Rose skimmed the letter. It touched on the tragedy of the Titanic's sinking, stated that she was mourning the premature death of her daughter and that her continued debt made all of it almost impossible to bear.

In his reply Cal had offered his condolences, implied that he was in mourning himself, apologized for the fact that he would no longer be able to secure her financial situation.

The next letter was dated from the middle of May. It was a simpering thank-you from her mother to Cal. _I am forever indebted to your kindness and cannot possibly begin to express the extent of my gratitude,_ she wrote.

The tone of Cal's response was a little brusque. _I hope that you find closure in my assumption of your debt and I wish you well in life. With all due respect, I can see no real value in prolonging our communication. You are a painful reminder of my gravest loss._

Rose stared at the letter in her hands and the imagery of her dreams came flooding back to her.

_Jack…_

…_I'm flying._

For a moment she was on the bow of the Titanic again, wind rushing around her, safe in Jack's embrace.

_Any other man in his right mind would have left you to die in the streets, you little slut,_ Cal's voice echoed in her mind.

_Didn't you realize that I loved you?_

xXx

"I hate feeling ignorant," said Rose.

Edith didn't respond; her back was turned as she prepared Rose's afternoon tea. Cal would have scoffed at her for sitting at the servant's table, in the kitchen—a room normally quarantined for servants only.

"It's like everybody in my life has teamed up to try and protect me from myself," she went on. She sifted absently through a stack of mail that stood on the table, not looking at the postmarks.

"No one trusts me with information," she said.

_Everybody. No one. _All of those were code words for _Cal_.

Edith set the tea tray in front of Rose. "Will that be all, Miss Rose?" she asked, as if Rose hadn't spoken a word.

Rose ignored the question and stared at the letter in her hand. The return address read _Philadelphia Stock Exchange_. She remembered seeing that name somewhere on the sinister-looking notification she'd found in Cal's desk. "I don't know what this means," she said, narrowing her eyes at it, "but I _should._ A marriage is supposed to be a partnership based upon honesty and shared experience."

That was a lie. Marriage _was supposed_ to be a deep emotional connection formed permanently between two people who could manage to become both lovers and best friends.

"I almost miss Cal. I almost want him to come back," Rose said. Edith still stood waiting to be dismissed, her arms crossed. "Ridiculous, isn't it? Especially since I know that when he gets home this evening we'll probably be at each other's throats as usual."

She glanced at Edith. "I feel dead in this house," she said. "Everyone is always sweeping past me as if I'm invisible."

"We've all been instructed by Mr. Hockley to avoid interaction with you, I'm sorry to say," Edith said, turning toward the door.

"Cal—what?"

"I myself believe he's doing you a great disservice." Rose knew the disapproval on Edith's face was not for her but for Cal. "Though of course he claims it's for your own good."

"Why—"

"Miss Rose, at the risk of my dismissal, I will be honest with you. We may be servants but we are neither stupid nor ignorant. None of us are blind to what goes on between you and Mr. Hockley."

Rose's chest tightened. This was exactly what she had been looking for, but now that she was hearing it for herself she wanted to shut her hands over her ears and run from the room before Edith could say another word.

"Of course it's no concern of mine, and forgive me for postulating, but whatever has taken place from the date of your departure to Europe up till now is no great mystery to those of us who live and work here. You're intelligent and inquisitive enough to deserve the truth, in my opinion, so that you can at least be spared a bit of your dignity."

Heavy rain drummed against the roof outside, mindless white noise that agitated Rose. She was upset—sober and disturbed, disoriented. Something like an emotional panic attack. It made her want to curl up into her dead mother's loving embrace and cry like a baby until she found relief in sleep, but that was purely instinctual because her mother's embrace had never been _loving_.

_Please don't let anything happen… please… Cal…_

Memories tried to surface—a dark room, delirium, the nauseous feeling of pain numbed by medicine—and the free thrill of flying that had stopped her heart and her mind when she let herself slip and fall to the foot of the grand staircase.

_Nothing… is going to happen to you._

Maybe trying to keep her sheltered was Cal's only way of following through on a promise she didn't even remember him making. Maybe he thought she was too delicate to handle the burden of being half a partnership.

_No one has ever wanted anything but the best—_

xXx

She wanted to barricade the door of her bedroom and let servants ride things up to her window via a pulley system. None of them would ever again set eyes upon her physical form and in time she would fade from their memories until she was nothing more than dust.

It had been months since she'd given even a passing consideration to anything half so drastic.

xXx

She met Cal at the door of his study when he returned that night. She took one glance at him and knew he wouldn't want to visit with her just then—his hair and jacket were wet from a dash through the rain and he looked bitter and oblivious, in the mood to get mildly drunk and storm around the mansion in search of servants to abuse. But she didn't care.

"I wanted to have tea sent up for you," was the first thing she said. "But I'm afraid I'll get an innocent maid in trouble if she's caught anywhere near me."

"What are you going on about?" Cal pushed past her and tossed his briefcase aside. He seemed halfway oblivious to her as he collapsed behind his desk.

Very gingerly, Rose pulled the study door closed. Cal looked over at her but didn't protest, so she took it as an invitation to sit down and make herself more comfortable.

She opened her mouth to speak, and faltered.

She hadn't known what exactly she was going to say to him, but seeing him in typical ill temper instantly put her off. What had she wanted? To cry about how sick she was with shame? To plead with him to take her away from here, from everyone and everything, to some distant place where they could both start over and leave this whole tangled mess behind?

Uncomfortable silence set in as Cal flipped through the mail that had arrived while he was gone. When he came to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange letter he threw it in the wastepaper basket without bothering even to open it.

Rose reached for it, thinking it must be something important and that Cal had only thrown it out in a moment of frustration, but he grabbed her arm to stop her. "Leave it," he said. "I'm already familiar with the content."

His voice sounded more level than she would have expected. She looked up into his face and saw that his angry expression had faded into a mask of resignation and indifference.

He let go of her arm without breaking eye contact. Suddenly self-conscious, Rose cleared her throat.

"Do you understand the position you've put me in?" Cal asked in a low voice. "Do you have any frame of reference?"

Rose's mind went blank.

"I've estranged my father in your defense, when he was my strongest and arguably _only_ means of financial security. I draw unnecessary attention to myself every time I brush off questions about you. And what have I gotten in return? I'm accused, disowned, doubted, at risk of a future bankruptcy—all for you, my dear."

"I—"

"You're my only drive, my only _inspiration_. It's categorically insane of me to alienate the people who act as my collateral, but I have anyway—I told you early in the summer, Rose, that any other man would have left you to die in the streets—"

—_you little slut—_

"—and that had damn well better mean something to you because I am _destroying myself_ on your behalf even though I'm more than aware that it won't get me what I want from you."

Cal reached for the brandy and poured himself a shot glass.

"Let me ask you something, Rose," he said. "At what point does it pay off?"

He tossed back the shot and watched her across the desk.

Why did she feel like she had just been punched in the gut?

She rescinded into her memory, where all she could feel was her hand scrawling words across a sheet of stationery.

_Darling… Now you can keep us both locked in your safe_.

The sentiment had been crafted in the heat of her rebellion. Her note pinned to the portrait signified not only their broken engagement but also the fact that she had broken free of him and the world he represented. They were words of an ultimate liberation—the liberation of her mind, her body, her spirit, her life.

She knew her words would mock him. They would anger him. It was what she'd wanted—to tell him, in the clearest way possible, that he had lost. And here, darling, is your consolation prize.

Rose shut her eyes and saw the mean, sideways half smile he had shot her right after slapping her across the face that night.

She had begun to accept by now that he did feel something toward her beyond the superficial. Though it was a selfish and possessive love, rooted in his desire to own her and to influence her, she thought it was about as much as she could ever hope to see from him. After a lifetime spent being programmed by the wrong people, it was the only kind of love he knew how to feel.

It had never occurred to her to think about whether she might have hurt him with her contemptuous rejection. Insulted, yes, enraged, of course… she had intended those things. He'd abused her, he'd treated her like an object, an ornament, a slave to his every whim. He was cold and ignorant and soulless and he had earned her worst.

And now? What might he have thought when he looked at her now—as he sacrificed for her, as he tried his best to understand what it took to make her happy, even if he seemed to realize that ultimately he would never be able to… She was carrying another man's child, a child he would have to face every day for years to come as a reminder of it all, a child he would have to claim as his own and pretend to care for even through his hatred.

Whether or not his motives were genuine, the injury and insult must have been agonizing.

"It pays off," Rose managed at last, "when you learn to respect me as an equal."

Her throat was dry, her voice scratchy. She swallowed several times.

"I didn't want to find out that all of our servants have been ordered to avoid me… in case one of them slips up and says the wrong thing." She swallowed again to oil her throat. "I don't like seeing you crushed under the stress of problems that you won't even try to explain to me. A marriage is supposed to be a partnership… based upon honesty and shared experience."

Cal just raised an eyebrow.

"And I know our marriage is a long way from typical, but I don't see any reason why we can't strive for some degree of—of normalcy… and if you want my respect, then you're going to have to give me yours in return."

"Nothing has ever been good enough for you, Rose," said Cal. "_Nothing_."

They stared at each other in silence.

At last Cal broke eye contact to pour another shot. "I'm not Jack Dawson," he went on, sounding almost bored.

"I know that," Rose replied, unwilling to react to the comment.

"I shouldn't have to keep on proving myself. The sacrifices I've already made for you are disproportionate."

She didn't understand. Here she was, reaching out to him—explaining to him the simple change he had to make if he wanted their relationship to rise above the plateau it had already reached… Did he really think he had any room to be stubborn?

"It's late. I'm tired. We'll talk more about this later."

Something about the way he said it made Rose nervous. All of a sudden she couldn't wait to be by herself in her own room, where she could clear her mind without any distractions. "Alright," she said.

She took one last look at him as she slipped out the door—he snatched at the letter he'd dropped into the wastepaper basket, almost _smirked _at it, as though he had lost his mind and found it somehow amusing. As she watched, he tore it into several pieces and let them scatter across the carpet.


	19. Author's Note

**[Author's Note:]**

Whoa! It's been a long time, and I felt inspired to resurrect this story from the dead, just for the hell of it.

I just re-read the whole thing for the first time in a couple of years, and there's a lot that I'm not happy about - dialogue, character interpretations, sparse writing (which some of you have actually said you liked). I wrote it like that because at the time I thought historical fiction was too much work and that using a spaced-out style of prose would mean I didn't have to ground the story.

So there are a number of aspects I want to change, including the nature of the relationship I developed between the characters, which is currently stuck at the DEAD END OF NEVER! You all told me that, and I listened. Their slow, frustrating convergence is absolutely going to stay the same, and a lot of it I'll probably just expand upon as is because a total rewrite would take too long and I'd rather get on with adding new material than editing old stuff forever.

The overarching concept of this fic will stay the same. It's just that I look at it now and I'm like, "Gross, I was 18 when I wrote that melodramatic crap." Hopefully you guys will still like what I do with the story. If any of you would like an archive of the original version as I replace chapters on FFn, let me know and I'll make a livejournal/blogspot or something for it. It's also posted on Anne's Story Page in its original form (which this website won't let me link to).

K


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